In Claremont, Mr. Grant was best known as the organizer and chair of the Claremont Association for Mutual American/Soviet Understanding, commonly known as CAMASU.

Mr. Grant was born in Williamstown, Ontario, Canada on September 17, 1910. His grandparents migrated from the Mohawk Valley in up-state New York in the 19th century to Ontario Province in Eastern Canada, where family members were active in provincial political life. He was educated at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and received a fellowship for graduate study in political science and psychology at London School of Economics in England.

A member of the United Church of Canada, Mr. Grant was ordained to the Christian ministry in 1937. As secretary of the Student Christian Movement of Canada, he served as chaplain on campuses in Montreal and Vancouver from 1939 to 1948. Continuing his education, he earned a master’s degree in religious education at Columbia University and a doctorate from Union Theological Seminary in New York. At UTS, he served as lecturer and department assistant. His studies under Reinhold Neibuhr, he said, influenced him and his teaching for the rest of his life.

In 1953, Mr. Grant was sent by the American Mission Board of the Congregational Churches (now UCC.) to Silliman University in Dumaguete, the Philippines, to teach in the School of Theology. During the next 8 years, he added to his teaching responsibilities, serving as head of the division of student personnel, as a member in the president’s cabinet and then head of the division of religious affairs. In 1960, he returned to New York on sabbatical to complete his doctorate in theology. There, he married longtime friend Fern Babcock, and the two returned to the Philippines.

Next, Mr. Grant was persuaded to take a position in Manila on the national staff of the United Churches of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) as coordinator for social education and action in the department of public welfare. Three years later he became head of that department. In that role, he developed an Institute on Ethnic Studies in Asia for which he traveled, conducted studies and set up international conferences in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The success of that program led him to serve as consultant on Indo-China for the National Council of Churches, USA. Meanwhile, he found time to serve as adjunct professor of Asian cultures and religions for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Seminary in Manila. In 1971, it was time to retire.

Mr. Grant and his wife had too much energy to fully retire, so they accepted an appointment to Yu-Shan Theological College in Hualien, Taiwan, where he served as professor of cultural studies and consultant on theological education for 3 years. Next, they returned for another 4 years at Silliman University in the Philippines, where he was visiting professor and consultant/coordinator of the Southeast Asian Studies Program. Leaving for retirement in the US, the Grants spent 7 months continuing their contacts in Southeast Asia and Europe and studying in New York.

Arriving to retire at Pilgrim Place in Claremont in 1984, Mr. Grant still did not retire. Concerned about the lack of information and understanding among Americans about the Soviet Union, where he had just spent several weeks visiting universities, he made contact in Claremont with college professors and others who were knowledgeable about Eastern Europe. This was long before glasnost and the current openness of Russia to the west, so Mr. Grant undertook organizing a committee of faculty and local citizens to initiate an educational program on Eastern Europe. The Claremont Association for Mutual American-Soviet Understanding (CAMASU) was the result.

CAMASU brought lectures by foreign visitors and local faculty, a Russian poet, films made in USSR and Russian cultural programs to the Pomona Valley. It supported a group of local women who arranged exchanges of women from Moscow with women from Claremont. Mr. Grant played a large part in opening the eyes and hearts of Claremonters to societies very unlike this one.

Mr. Grant is survived by his sisters-in-law, Alice Grant and Helen Grant of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada; by his niece and her husband, Heather and David Grant of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada; by his nephew, Glen Grant of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada; by his nephew and his wife, Brian and Margaret Grant of Ottawa, Canada; by his nephew and his wife, Ronald and Sherry Grant Alberta, Canada; and by several grandnephews and grandnieces. He was preceded in death by his wife, Fern Babcock Grant, in 1984.

A memorial service will be held in Decker Hall at Pilgrim Place at 3 p.m. on Saturday, February 25, 2006. Friends may make memorial gifts to the Pilgrim Place Health and Support Fund, 660 Avery Road, Claremont, CA 91711.