Gary and LaVon Grandy pose for an “American Gothic” photo.
Gary and LaVon Grandy pose for an “American Gothic” photo.
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of stories planned by Cache Valley freelance writer Cindy Knowles based on the idea that everyone has an interesting story to tell.
Gary and Lavon Grandy met years ago at BYU through Gary’s Teton, Idaho, roommate. LaVon Gillette (her maiden name and related to the razor company) came to visit Gary’s college apartment at 5 o’clock one morning. Her girlfriend had a connection with one of the other boys there, but they woke up the whole apartment. Gary took one look at LaVon that early morning and said to himself, “Oh, she’s for me!”
Gary and LaVon were married in 1962 in the Idaho Falls Temple. They spent eight years in American Fork, while Gary was working with U.S. Steel in Orem and LaVon worked as a registered nurse. Later in 1965 they bought a 165-acre ranch in the Teton Valley. Gary was then the accountant for Grand Targee ski resort. Later he was director on the hospital board at Teton Valley Hospital in Driggs, Idaho. They also went to Alaska for 12 years and he worked at Petersburg Medical Center as CEO. They leased out their home and barn on the ranch while they were away. When they came back, they became ranchers again. They also had a ranch in Montpelier, Idaho, 126 miles away.
The Grandys had four children. Trent was born in 1964, Shawna was adopted in 1968 through a doctor friend. LaVon said that in two years if they had another baby for adoption they would be ready to handle another one. Two weeks later the doctor called with Lance, who was born in 1969. The couple also raised two Indian-placement children. Susan was 14 years old and Navajo, and they say she was very happy with them. Fourteen-year old Willy was Sioux. He wasn’t happy at all; he wanted to be home with his family on the reservation. He eventually stole a bike and somehow made his way back to Billings, Montana, then made his way to Eagle Butte to be with his siblings on the reservation.
Then in 1971, LaVon had a baby boy, Regan, so they had three children under 3 years old. All three were in cloth diapers, which was a lot of work. LaVon quit her nursing career at that point to be full-time mother. When the three older kids were all in school, her parents helped out and she went back into nursing. Her parents took care of Regan, who was still too young to be in school. Teton Valley had a shortage of registered nurses, and that is why she went back into nursing again.
The kids loved the lifestyle living on the ranch. They picked potatoes, moved irrigation pipe and raised raspberries that they were able to sell for cash. They rode horses, went on hikes, raised pigs and had one milk cow. The cow was a short-horned Guernsey. She had the richest milk and tons of it. They bought pigs so the excess milk would not go to waste, but raising pigs turned out to be a one-time experiment.
Taking pigs to market is difficult because they are huge and hard to transport. They found it impossible to lasso a pig around the neck since the animals don’t have one. Finally a neighbor suggested that they put a bucket over the pigs’ heads and back them into the truck. Gary was so out of breath by the time they got them loaded, he told the kids, “If you ever bring another pig on this place, I’ll blast them to you know where!”
Gary was a full-time CEO, so when drama happened at the ranch, he wasn’t always available. That put a lot of responsibility on LaVon. Many times Gary wasn’t available because his job was far from the ranch. She and the children had to assist in births by pulling calves. They raised Charolais cattle, the big white ones, and LaVon also ran their little town grocery store.
LaVon’s nursing skills came in handy, and once she even did a C-section on one of their neighbor’s ewes. Gary was out of town transporting an ambulance back to their hospital from Wyoming through a blizzard. There was no veterinarian in the valley, so the neighbor thought she and her nursing skills would be helpful to the ewe’s labor.
LaVon was babysitting another neighbor’s kids at the time, three of them overnight. This meant she had care of seven kids including her own that night. She brought the oldest, Trent, to help with the sheep surgery. She woke Shawna, who was 11 years old, to watch the other five kids while they were operating on the ewe. She ran to the hospital to get sutures, disinfectant, bandages and antibiotics normally used on humans. It was dark and snowing, and the hospital had the closest supplies available during a blizzard.
It was a hard birth and she wasn’t able to save them both. She made the incision and got out the stillborn lamb. It was huge. They tried to resuscitate it, but it didn’t make it. They sewed the ewe up and skinned the lamb and made a coat for a neglected “bum” lamb that had been rejected by its mother. The ewe recognized the smell of her lamb and raised the bum lamb as her own. It was like their own episode of the show, “Little House on the Prairie,” and it was just one of many difficult animal births LaVon assisted in over the years.
Besides the ranch, Gary was the bishop for their Latter-day Saint congregation, CEO at the hospital, an EMT, an ambulance runner, and he also would often take a horse out to look for lost range cattle. Besides all of this, the couple owned the grocery store. LaVon said Gary was so busy she wrote him a letter and said, “How may I schedule an appointment with you?”
Gary says jokingly, “My wife raised the kids. If there is anything wrong with them, it’s her fault.” But to hear the Grandys tell it, all of their offspring were great kids who grew up to be wonderful adults.
They would tell the kids, “If we hear about you from the town gossip, school teacher or another kid ratting them out, you are guilty until proven innocent.” LaVon was often able to find out the truth from her sources.
They enjoyed their ranching lives and even created an American Gothic themed Christmas card one year in front of the barn. Today, living in Richmond, they have a much easier, carefree life. They now have time for leisure and doing things they enjoy. LaVon is a dedicated quilter with a sewing room just for her embroidery and sewing machine. Her favorite quilt style is crazy quilts. She loves to do all the hand-piecing and then sends them off to a professional quilter to finish them on a quilting machine. Her favorite quilt incorporates her mother’s tatting, antique buttons and lace from her collection with a pastel theme.
Gary is quite the joker. “We have quiet neighbors,” he says, which makes sense once you realize they live next to a cemetery. He put a sign outside for his wife’s car parking area that says, “Parking for nurses only. All others will be put in intensive care.”
The Grandys home is a collection of wood carvings (from Gary’s time serving a church mission in Germany), antique bottles, taxidermy and a quilter’s delight with many of LaVon’s quilts hung as artwork. Inside near the front door are two taxidermay raccoons paddling a canoe. Beneath them is a sign that says, “Remember, as far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family.”
Gary has a model T Ford with a custom trailer to match. When the rumble seat, or “mother-in-law seat,” in the very back is filled with people, it doesn’t leave room for anything else, so a matching trailer takes care of luggage, picnic basket and anything else needed for a long trip.
Gary gardens outside in his free time now, and he enjoys the old Western films with John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda and Roy Rogers.
The Grandys advice after many years of marriage, business, and ranching experience is to “be patient with everyone and serve your communities much.”
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