James Alexander Grant

James Alexander Grant died on October 3, 2024 – coincidentally also his birthday – at the age of 89. He was surrounded by his family, who had just sung happy birthday to him. 

James “Jim” Grant was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1935, the son of Aileen and Ian Grant. He grew up in the Highlands, spending his summers herding sheep overlooking Loch Ness and fly fishing with his dad. After graduating from the University of Aberdeen, he left Scotland for Canada where he earned his M.S. at Queens University and then his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). While there, he met his future wife, Christabel Smyth (from Dublin, Ireland). They married in Dublin on August 12, 1964.

 After graduating from Caltech, Jim took a job in Minneapolis as a geology professor with the University of Minnesota. Their children Fiona and Ian soon came along in the late 1960s. Jim and family then moved to Duluth in 1969 where he joined the geology department at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where he would work with his beloved colleagues and students for the next 35 years. In the early 1970s, he helped launch UMD’s still-running geology summer field camp in Park City, Utah, bringing grad students out to the mountains for many years. In 1976-77, he and his family moved to Göttingen, Germany, for a sabbatical year. In 1980, he headed up the inaugural year of UMD’s new study abroad program in Birmingham, England, bringing his family to live there for a year.  

Over the course of his career, Jim was fascinated by what he called “melting mud,” and went all around the world to research a melting event he thought took place about 1.4 billion years ago. As part of this research, in 1980 he went to Namibia, in 1981 he got ten years of funding from the National Science Foundation to do mapping in Wyoming, and in 2001 went to Australia. His work was published, helping scientists better understand the ancient geological processes that shaped the region billions of years ago, and the methods he devised to measure these geochemical changes are still widely used today.

 Jim fully embraced his new home country, and in 1976 he and Christabel became U.S. citizens, proud to be naturalized in this country’s bicentennial year. Jim was also passionate about his Scottish roots in many ways including being a founding chair of the Scottish Heritage Association of Duluth, which is still active to this day.

 Jim had a beautiful bass voice and loved to sing. He was very active in the community, singing in the St. Paul Episcopal Church choir from 1970 onwards, singing in the Duluth Superior Symphony Chorus, a member of Duluth Rotary Club 25 for over two decades, a board member of the Duluth Superior Symphony, and a regular volunteer at the Bong WWII Heritage Center in Superior, Wisc.

 In 1991, Jim and Christabel welcomed Serguei Pakhomov, a visiting student at St. Scholastica from Petrozavodsk, Russia, to live with them in Duluth. Serguei quickly became their “Russian son” and has been a part of the Grant family ever since. In 1989, Jim and Christabel bought an undeveloped property on Lake Nebagamon in northern Wisconsin and began building their dream home. They moved out to the lake in 1993, and that home continues to be the hub of family life to this day. 

Jim loved to travel, cook (and eat!), dance, play games, and even continued downhill skiing into his late 70s. He was famous (or infamous) for his puns and stories, often starting a pun at the beginning of dinner and working his way through the dinner to reveal the pun at the end. He was funny, welcoming, sweet-natured, and had a contagious laugh and always a glimmer in his eyes. Family was everything to him, and first and foremost, for Jim the sun rose and set on Christabel. He supported with gusto anything his children, their spouses, and grandchildren were into and was so proud of them all. Above all, his most cherished moments were spent surrounded by family and friends at their home on Lake Nebagamon, whether singing around the piano, telling stories around the dinner table, or sitting on the dock watching the sun set.

 He is survived by his wife Christabel Grant of 60 years, daughter Fiona Pradhan (Ravi Pradhan), son Ian Grant (Lisa Grant), Russian son Serguei Pakhomov (Amy Pakhomov), and grandchildren Tara Pradhan, Alex Grant, and Owen Pakhomov.

 A Celebration of Life service will be held at 11:00 AM on Friday, October 11th, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1710 E. Superior St., Duluth, MN 55812. Visitation will begin at 10:00 AM, and a lunch reception will follow the service. Memorial donations may be made to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Duluth (stpaulsduluth.org), or the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra (dsso.com). Arrangements by Dougherty Funeral Home. 600 E. 2nd St. Duluth, MN 55805. 218-727-3555.