Grant Patch

1930 - 2024

Grant Patch

February 22, 1930 ~

August 29, 2024

Midway, UT-Grant Matthew Patch died peacefully on August 29, 2024, inside the home in Midway, Utah that forty-five years earlier he built with his own hands. The lawn surrounding his home, an acre and a half of exquisitely maintained emerald-green carpet, embodied the care and perfectionism that infused the varied passions of his life. Foremost among these was the 72-year marriage to his sweetheart, Marna Muhlestein Patch, a remarkable woman who stood at his side both in life and at death, and the seven sons they raised together.

Grant was born February 22, 1930, in Minneapolis, MN to Irma Martonne McKeever Patch and Renford Matthew Patch. He attended BYU, graduating with a business degree in 1960. He worked several jobs to pay for college tuition and to support his growing family most notably a dispatcher and motorcycle policeman for the city of Provo.

In 1965 he moved his family to Grand Forks, ND, an unlikely focal point of his family's story, where he bought and managed a retail music store, Scott's Music. Eleven years later he sold the store and moved to Midway and built the home where he lived and worked for the rest of his life as Wasco Credit Union Manager, Midway City Sewer board member, Soldier Hollow and Wasatch Mountain Golf Course Marshal, and free-lance piano tuner.

Jack Watson, Abe Neering, and Roy Kohler helped Grant build his Midway home and, in the process, taught him a variety of construction skills including framing, electrical and plumbing installation, tiling, roofing, and fine carpentry, skills he put to use the remainder of his life. He was a handyman at heart. And also a tinkerer, drawn to the puzzle of fixing things broken such as cars, kitchen appliances, mopeds, pianos, and most importantly, lawnmowers. The garage of his Midway home is filled with assorted tools and accessories by which he accomplished these miracles.

He served the Church as full-time missionary to the North Central States Mission, bishop in Salt Lake City and in Midway, branch president in Grand Forks, and Mission President of the Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Mission along with his wife, Marna. His service in and out of church was characterized by a quick wit, love, compassion, collaborative leadership, diplomacy, and enviable public speaking skills.

His hobbies included playing duets with Marna along with a variety of classical and jazz compositions on the 1904 Steinway grand piano he rescued from a nursing home some fifty years ago, golfing, fishing, hiking, skiing, and traveling. He and Marna traveled to Europe and Mexico and cruised to varied tropical destinations with Midway friends. The travel they favored most, though, were the cross-country road trips to visit their sons who were scattered across the states, the trunk of their Accord filled with tools by which father expressed love to son-the saws, drills, levels, right angles, and hammers used to complete their often ambitious home improvement projects.

Grant is survived by his wife, Marna, the love of his life, their seven sons, Gene Renford (Sarah), Douglas Arthur, Gregory Grant (Janene), Bradley George (Marcela), Timothy McKeever (Lisa), Richard Matthew (Tami), and Christopher John (Monica), their thirty-eight grandchildren, and their sixty-nine great grandchildren.

The viewing will be held Friday, September 6, 2024, from 6-8 pm at the Midway Stake Center, 165 N. Center Street, Midway, UT 84049. There will be a second viewing Saturday, September 7, 2024, from 1-2 pm, followed by the Funeral Service from 2-3 pm, also at the Midway Stake Center.