Peter Allen Grindrod

When Peter was born he was the baby of the family, having two older sisters and one older brother. His parents, William Grindrod and Lucy Richardson, were married in 1892. The family added one last child, Lucy, in 1914, and lived on Tioga Street in the Harrowgate section of Philadelphia, where William was a textile mill worker.

As a young adult, Peter became a clerk at Felton, Sibley & Co., Inc., a local paint manufacturer. Another young adult named Eleanor Russett became Peter’s bride on February 19, 1929 and the newlyweds moved in with Eleanor’s widowed mother.

As the economic impact of the Great Depression began to gradually improve, houses still needed to be painted, and Peter moved up to a sales manager position. They also moved up to a home in Ardsley, part of Abington Township in Montgomery County. They shared their home with Eleanor’s mother and added three children in the years between 1930 and 1939. 

Although he was 33 years old in 1940, all men between the ages of 21 and 35 had to register for the draft. At the time, military service must have been something Peter thought would never happen, at least for him, but he registered on October 16. And while the war did happen, he waited until June 15, 1944 to enlist. It was just after D-Day which he probably saw as a turning point, or he just saw that it was his duty to join.

He became an apprentice seaman in the Navy, stationed at the US Naval Training Center in Bainbridge, Maryland. His rating changed to Seaman 2nd Class on August 1, but on August 4 Peter was sent to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with colon cancer, and that’s why he died on September 25, exactly 100 days after he enlisted.

The gravestone pictured above marks his place in the Naval Plot on the Yeadon side of Mount Moriah.