Lewis Grant, Jr.

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(1922 - July 12, 1968)

Lewis J. “Lewie” Grant, Jr., a Chicago fan active in the 1950s and ’60s, was a member of the Chicago Rocket Society and Tuesday Night Group, and attended George Price’s monthly parties. He was involved with the Chicago: 1959 Worldcon bid. He contributed to such fanzines as Yandro. He was an avid punster.

In the Windycon 3 program book, Price eulogized:

Lewis Grant was one of the very few people I have known who could rightly be called a “Renaissance Man,” intellectually if not physically. Wherever a conversation might turn — science and technology, science fiction, politics and public affairs — he would nearly always be well-informed and full of fascinating opinions. Those who came to know Lewie were usually surprised to discover that he did not have an advanced degree, or indeed any degree at all. That he was largely self-educated may even by why he never fell into the trap of becoming a narrow specialist. Nor was his encyclopedic knowledge merely a collection of miscellaneous tidbits: he had a very strong sense of the interrelatedness of everything, and could draw together facts from widely scattered fields and integrate them in surprising ways. It may have been his philosophic sense of the wholeness of knowledge and life that enabled him to cheerfully endure the physical defects that eventually took him from us. He always faced life with a smile and a joke — he was famous for atrocious puns at which we groaned more in envy than in pain. Lewie’s life was short, but he put more into it, of accomplishment, friendship, and human decency, than most of us put into twice the time.

In 1974, the Lewis Grant, Jr. Memorial Award was named in his honor for the fan-voted best in show award at Windycon's art show.

Grant died of a heart attack at the 1968 Wilcon.



Person 19221968
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