Alma Alexander Gren
My grandfather, Alma Alexander Gren, was born May 15, 1902 in Provo, Utah. I don’t know much about him since he and my grandmother, Helen Madeline Brown were separated by the time I was born. I remember that he would stop by and visit when he was in Salt Lake. As a young child I remember sitting on his lap and taking the pencils out of his pocket one by one and chewing the eraser off each one. He laughed!
He was a sign maker. The ability to print large signs and billboards was not possible during his time and so he hand painted the signs and billboards you would see along the road. He was an artist and very skilled at lettering. During a family road trip to Las Vegas as we were just outside of St George, Utah. My mother exclaimed, “There’s my dad!” My father immediately turned the car around and we stopped and visited with my grandfather.
He was also a talented glassblower. My grandmother had some small animals that he had blown. He also made neon lights. When my mother was a child he would bring home the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and decorate it with neon lights. Passersby used to come right up on the porch to admire it. I remember finding a neon light in the shape of a candy cane in my grandmother’s back bedroom.
My grandmother was always upset that he waited until Christmas Eve to get the tree. She warned him that one year he would not be able to find one. One year she was right. He searched the city and only found a sad tree with very few branches at an empty tree lot. He took it and collected loose branches from the tree lot. When he came in the door my grandmother was furious. He got out his drill and made holes in the trunk, inserting the branches he had gathered. My grandmother always said that it was the most beautiful tree she had ever seen.
I cannot remember if he brought the divorce papers to grandma or if someone else brought them. I seem to remember that he brought them, but the thing that I do remember clearly is how my grandmother wept while signing them. She loved him so much and was sad for a long time afterwards. He had plans to marry Cleo Belle Larsen. I am sure she did not want a divorce and I am not sure what caused them to separate.
We took another trip to Las Vegas when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather was in the hospital there and my mother wanted to see him. I remember visiting him once while we were there. The next time I saw him he was in the Salt Lake General Hospital. My mother said he had Hodgkinson’s disease. We went to his funeral in Roosevelt, Utah when he died April 15, 1966. Cleo wanted him buried there and he may have wanted that, too. He loved the red rock country.
-Vanalee Carruth 2013