LeGrand Alf Carlston

LeGrand was born in Salt Lake City in 1908. 

When his mother Nilla went to Norway to search out her genealogy, she took her two young boys, LeGrand and Herald. While in Norway, LeGrand became fluent in Norwegian. Later, he and Nilla would communicate via Norwegian letters (he eventually also learned French, Spanish and Latin - likely in connection with his law practice). 

1924 Scout picture

President Heber J. Grant occasionally gave him rides to school in his car. My dad said that these rides occurred during the depression when he was in college at the University of Utah. At the U, he worked nights as a taxi cab driver. 

He went on to serve a church mission to the Northcentral states which included Canada in 1927. LeGrand earned his law degree at George Washington University on June 7, 1933. 

One day when LeGrand was in college and Ken was in high school, they were going to a movie in Salt Lake City. At the time, LeGrand was driving a taxi hack in the evenings until 2 or 3 in the morning. LeGrand told Ken that before they went to the show he had to stop by the hotel Utah. While they were there, LeGrand ran into a fellow cab driver to whom he had loaned five dollars. During the depression, this sum of money was like a hundred dollars. Although the man had not repaid the loan, he approached LeGrand and asked if he could borrow another five dollars. LeGrand looked at him and said, "I only loan money once."

He returned to Salt Lake and opened a law office, receiving “hand-me-down” cases from the courts. LeGrand's success came primarily from his extraordinary abilities and diligent work. As a lawyer, LeGrand was very competent and won many cases. He and a partner, Tracy Powers, began to succeed when World War II entered their lives and LeGrand was drafted into the U.S. Army. He entered the army as a private, but in December 1942 he moved into the JAG as a Lieutenant Colonel after they learned he had a law degree. He eventually became Judge Advocate General of the South Pacific reporting to General MacArthur. During the war, in Australia, LeGrand met Beryl Mavis Uren from Melbourne. She drew airplane blueprints and they went out often when they first met, including a boat ride in Melbourne. 

When LeGrand was serving in the Philippines and Australia during the war, his parents Peter and Nilla prayed that LeGrand would meet and LDS girl to marry. Even their blessings on meals included this plea. It happened! LeGrand met Beryl and later sent for her to come and marry him.

From Beryl: We met in a small LDS meeting and his father told me years later that someone told him, "This is the girl you are going to marry." I was leaving the next day for Sydney and he said he would meet me at the American Headquarters. When I visited the HQ, I was told he wasn't there and started walking away. Along the street, I met Major Carlston, he had been shopping. We spent the afternoon taking a boat ride on the harbor and he later took me to the train station where I left for Melbourne, where I worked as a lady tracer in the Aircraft Engineering Dept at Fisherman Wharf.

After the war LeGrand returned to Salt Lake and asked Beryl to marry him. *Beryl: I prayed about the matter and decided as I did not know him except he was a member of the Church, that I wrote and said, "I wanted to be married in the Salt Lake Temple." I felt that if he could be married in the Salt Lake Temple, it would be all right. He wrote back and said that the arrangements had been made. The last time I saw my father was from the airplane window before a 12,000 mile flight on Australian National Airways’ Trans Pacific Skymaster Warana. LeGrand and Beryl married on October 9, 1946 in the Salt Lake Temple and moved to Denver a year later where LeGrand took a position as a lawyer at the Rocky Mountain Tariff Bureau.

Ken said that once LeGrand defended a Mexican who could not speak English. in order to act in the fellow's best interests, LeGrand learned to speak Spanish. He won the case.

He knew one of the principals there, Z L. Pierson, who offered him a job. In April 1967, LeGrand represented Rocky Mountain Tariff Bureau before the U.S. Supreme Court. Beryl became a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 3, 1949.

They raised their family (Lawrence, Carol Ann, Richard, Maxine and Robert) in Denver, Colorado. LeGrand passed away at Presbyterian Hospital October 28, 1969 at age 61. His immediate cause of death was acute anteroseptal myocardial infarction, stemming from coronary heart disease.