Submitted by: Dan Rich

Robert Allen Grant

July 31, 1905 - March 2, 1998

South Bend Tribune 3/5/1998

Robert Allen Grant, 92, United States District Judge, died following a short illness at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, March 2, in Integrated Health Services of Sarasota, Fla. Judge Grant was born on July 31, 1905, in Marshall County, Ind., to the late Everette F. and Margaret E. (Hatfield) Grant, and had lived in South Bend, Ind., since 1922, coming from Hamlet, Ind. He was also preceded in death by two brothers, Harold W. Grant and Jones H. Grant.

On Sept. 17, 1933, in South Bend, he married Margaret A. McClaren, who survives. He is also survived by a daughter, Margaret A. ''Peggy'' Soderberg of South Bend; a son, Robert A. Grant, Jr., of Idyllwild, Calif.; two grandchildren, Catherine Grant of State College, Pa., and Jennifer Grant of Englewood, Colo.; a sister, Edith King of White Water, Wis.; and by a brother, Roland E. Grant of South Bend.

Judge Grant attended grade school in Hamlet, Ind., and high school in Hamlet and South Bend. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame cum laude in 1928, and Notre Dame Law School cum laude in 1930. He was admitted to practice law in Indiana in 1930 and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940. He began practicing law with Pyle & Voor, attorneys in South Bend, and was a deputy prosecuting attorney in St. Joseph County in 1935-36 before going into general practice in 1937-38. He was elected to be a member of the 76th thru 80th Congress from the 3rd District of Indiana from 1939-1949, and returned to general practice from 1949-1957. On August 26, 1957, he was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the United States District Court, Northern District of Indiana, where he served as chief judge from 1961 to 1972 and as senior judge since 1972. He also served twelve terms on the United States District Court of Puerto Rico, and was a district judge and member of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1969-1972 as a member of its executive and budget committees and its Committee to Implement the Criminal Justice Act from 1972-1981. He was appointed by Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger to the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals of the United States on June 30, 1976. He served several years as trustee of the University of Indianapolis, was a member of the National Council representing northern Indiana for the Boy Scouts of America in 1967, received the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope from the Boy Scouts, and served as a past president of the Tri-Valley Council, Boy Scouts of America.

He was a member of the St. Joseph County and Indiana Bar Associations, Rotary, Union League Club of Chicago, Columbia Club of Indianapolis, Masonic Lodge #294, 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason, and was a member of all York and Scottish Rite bodies, and was commander-in-chief of the South Bend consistory, Past Potentate of Orak Temple Shrine, Past Grand Master of International Supreme Council of Order of DeMolay, and was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution from whom he received the Good Citizen Medal. He also received the Medal of Honor from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Court House in South Bend was rededicated as the Robert A. Grant Federal Building and United States Courthouse on September 25, 1992. In 1994 he was the recipient of the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., Award conferred by the Notre Dame Alumni Association on an alumnus who has performed outstanding public service. In 1987, at his 30th judicial anniversary, the judges robing room at the University of Notre Dame was named after him and, in 1995, he was elected to the South Bend Community Hall of Fame. He was also a founding member and was chairman of the first Michiana Community Prayer Breakfast in 1971.

Funeral services for Judge Grant will be at 11 a.m. on Saturday in the the First United Methodist Church, 333 N. Main Street, South Bend. Private Burial services will be held in Riverview Cemetery.

Friends may call from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday in the Welsheimer Funeral Home, 521 N. William Street. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Shriner's Hospitals for Crippled Children, to the First United Methodist Church, to the Center for the Homeless, or to the charity of donor's choice.