Grant Alden Parsons

Grant Alden Parsons passed away Jan. 14, 2013, at age 84. A native of Phoenix, Grant was born at Good Samaritan Hospital one day before his beloved wife “Sis” in August 1928.

 

He attended Emerson Elementary School and graduated from North Phoenix High School in 1946. Enlisting in the Navy after graduation, he served on Johnston Island in the Central Pacific and was honorably discharged in 1948. Upon his return to Arizona, he attended Phoenix College and the University of Arizona, where he was a proud member of Sigma Chi fraternity and graduated in 1952. 

 

In 1956, he married his former high school classmate, Barbara Jean Ross, and adopted her two young children, Ross and Stephanie. 

 

He became an insurance agent and after five years of night school, earned his C.P.C.U. designation and went to work for Valley National Company Insurance, where he became vice president, retiring in 1992. 

 

Grant loved his family, his friends and the University of Arizona sports. Through good times and bad, his loyalty to all never faded. In later years, he enjoyed walking to Phoenix Country Club, where he was a member for nearly half a century, and having a glass of iced tea with old friends every afternoon. He reserved every Friday for a pastrami sandwich and lunch with friends at a local deli. He was always ready with a smile and a joke, always remembered your name and very seldom could walk into a restaurant where he didn’t recognize at least one person there. 

 

He loved golf, tennis and dogs. He spent almost 50 summers in the White Mountains, fishing, reading, gardening and occasionally trapping a trespassing skunk that he would load into his pickup and release back into the forest. He loved simple things: a glass of wine at sunset, a haircut every two weeks and watching Diamondbacks baseball on TV. 

 

Grant is survived by his wife, Barbara Jean (Ross) Parsons, his children Ross Alden Parsons and Stephanie Colleen (Parsons); granddaughter Chelsea Rae (Parsons) Skallerup and her husband, Chris; two great-grandchildren, Keegan and Zoe; Ross’s fiancée, Linn Lewis; his sister, Carolyn Humphrey; his brother-in-law, Tom Ross, and his wife, Jan; and a dozen nephews and nieces.  

 

 

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