Thomas V. Grant

GRANT, M.D., C.M., HONOURABLE THOMAS VINCENT, physician and surgeon; b. 21 December 1876 in Peakes Station, son of Allan Grant and Mary Fisher; m. 27 October 1902 Minnie Donovan, and they had 13 children, Earl, Raymond, Vincent, Norbert, Byron, Roy, Anna Marie, Eileen, Cora, Mary, Jean, Beatrice, and Helen; Roman Catholic; d. 24 December 1966 in Charlottetown. Grant, a Liberal, was elected to the Legislative Assembly in the general election of 1927 for 3rd Kings. On 12 August of that year, he was appointed to Executive Council as a Minister without Portfolio. He resigned his position on 30 May 1930 to contest the riding of King's in the federal election, but was defeated. However, in the 1935 federal election, Grant was elected to the House of Commons for King's, and was re-elected in 1940 and 1945. He was appointed to the Senate and served from 25 June 1949 to 19 August 1965. Grant received his early education at the local schools in Peakes, Cardigan School, and at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown. Following his time at Prince of Wales, he taught school in Morell from 1898 to 1901. Later he wrote the Civil Service exam and obtained a job at the Charlottetown Post Office. He served as both railway and post office clerk until 1907. In 1908 Grant sold insurance for Mutual Life of Canada. He then attended medical college in Boston, and upon completion of his medical training Grant returned to the Island. He set up his first practice in Cardigan, then in Vernon River, and finally in Montague. From 1920 to 1930, he served as the medical coroner for Kings County, and, from 1921 to 1930, he served as the secretary-treasurer for the Liberal Association of Kings County. He was a member of the executive of the PEI Liberal Association. Grant did not belong to any fraternal organizations because he felt that they segregated rather than united society. Thomas Grant died 24 December 1966 in the Charlottetown Hospital. Minnie Grant, the daughter of Patrick Donovan of Morell, was born 3 April 1880 and died 28 October 1968. Of the couple's thirteen children, the six sons were graduates of medical or dental colleges, tour daughters were nurses, one daughter was a laboratory technician, and one joined a religious order and was also the pharmacist for many years at the Charlottetown Hospital. Anna Marie Grant died in Charlottetown several years before her parents.