Lyle Grimes

1935 - 2025

Lyle Grimes

August 24, 1935 - October 27, 2025

Lyle Raymond Grimes, 90 remarkable years of age, passed away peacefully in his home on October 27, 2025. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m., Saturday, November 1, 2025, at Messiah Lutheran Church in Missoula, Montana. Burial in the Missoula City Cemetery will follow a reception in the Messiah Lutheran Church. Lyle is survived by his wife of 70 years, Gail; his three children, Gay Gragson (Ted), Candace Reinholdt (Richie), and Arlin Grimes (Amy); five grandchildren, Alyosha Sonju, Nicole Reinholdt, Laura (Gragson) Gollin (Sam), Patrick Gragson (Miranda), and Daniel Gragson (Emily); and three great-grandchildren, Charlotte Gollin, Madeleine Gollin, and Abigail Gragson.

Lyle was born in Bozeman, Mont., on August 24, 1935, to Claude and Florence Grimes. At 19, on January 13, 1955, he married the love of his life, Gail Elizabeth Lindseth (with permission from his father, per Montana law in those days). He began college at the College of Great Falls and has always credited Sister Providentia and the incoming WWII veterans for helping him "get serious" about his own future. He transferred to the University of Montana and matriculated with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1958. He immediately joined the Western Federal Building and Loan in Missoula as a loan officer. In the mid-1970 he managed the loan department and was promoted to executive vice-president. In 1983 he was elected President and Chief Executive Officer.

From the early 1990s to 2000 when he retired, Lyle orchestrated and oversaw the (massive) transition process of deregulating the Savings and Loan industry in Montana and nationally as it transitioned into banks. He was part of the Federal Home Loan Association committee working with Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank as they worked through this process.

Lyle was President, CEO, and Chairman of the resulting Westerfed Financial Co. and Western Security Bank. When he began working, the Building and Loan had 16 employees and $17 million in assets; when he retired in 2001, the institution had over 400 employees statewide and $1 billion in assets, and was the largest publicly traded banking institution headquartered in Montana.

He loved the Missoula community and enthusiastically gave back to it through long-term, active membership in the Kiwanis club, Rotary club, and Junior Chamber of Commerce (where he served as National Clean Water Chairman). He thoroughly enjoyed this work and the many wonderful people he met as he did it. He especially valued the time he spent on the Missoula County District 1 school board, including a two-year stint as the president. He was part of this important team during the turbulent early 1970s. After much seeking and serious thought, Lyle came to a belief in Christ as his savior, which he formalized through baptism at Messiah Lutheran Church in 1997. He has faithfully served the congregation of Messiah for many years as president of the congregation and as executive parking lot snowplower.

Lyle did not begin his work at the Building and Loan with leadership on his mind. Rather, what always informed his sense of purpose in life was a deep commitment to providing a stable home for his wife and the family they would have, and for helping those in his much-loved Missoula community to put down roots through home ownership. As he did for the banking community in Missoula, so he did for his children and extended family.

Although most people would never know this, Lyle was saddled at birth with some challenges most of the rest of us never face. From a very early age he understood that life is uncertain. So everything he did, he did with purpose, curiosity, and joy. He cultivated his extraordinarily kind and generous heart. If he couldn't do something one way, he was excited to discover another way to do it. He never gave up, and although he approached life with a grand sense of humor, he also had constant gratitude for every minute of it. And if it could involve getting stuck at least once, or better still a break down, it was the best outing it could be.

Lyle and Gail deeply appreciate and love the landscape of Montana, and together with their children and some like-minded friends they thoroughly backpacked, hiked, hunted, fished, skied, ice fished, snowmobiled, and horsebacked through Western Montana. In 1980, Lyle, Gail, Candace and Arlin helped fulfill a long-time goal of backpacking out the back door of their home up the Rattlesnake in Missoula, through the Rattlesnake Wilderness area and then across the Bob Marshall Wilderness area to Benchmark, where they were picked up, thin but triumphant, by Gay Marie. For all these life-shaping experiences, his children are deeply grateful.

Garden City Funeral Home

406-543-4190