VERNON GRANT
  • HOME
  • Remembering KEITH MARTIN
  • CARD & ORNAMENT 2021
  • ChristmasVille 2021
  • HERITAGE HALL DEBUTS VERNON GRANT
  • REMODELED CHILDREN'S MUSEUM
  • ChristmasVille 2020
  • VERNON GRANT POEM 2020
  • CARD & ORNAMENT 2020
  • ABOUT THE ARTIST
  • AS ILLUSTRATOR
  • PORTFOLIO
  • GNOMES
  • KELLOGG'S
    • CIVIC LEADERSHIP
  • MOTHER GOOSE
  • TINKER TIM the TOY MAKER
  • "Beyond Snap, Crackle, Pop . . ."
  • FARMING
  • HISTORICAL MARKER
  • MUSIC
  • CHILDREN'S MUSEUM
  • CHRISTMAS CARDS
  • CARD & ORNAMENT
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2019
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2018
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2017
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2015
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2014
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2013
    • CARD & ORNAMENT 2012 >
      • CARD & ORNAMENT 2011
      • CARD & ORNAMENT 2010
      • ChristmasVille
      • ChristmasVille 2019 >
        • ChristmasVille 2018
        • ChristmasVille 2017
        • ChristmasVille 2012-2015
    • COME-SEE-ME & GLEN THE FROG
The talents of Vernon Grant were not limited to sketches and oils.  Mother Nature blessed him when it came to the earth’s soils.  The use of his artistic talents to entertain soldiers in dimly lit hospitals during World War II damaged his vision.  In 1947, following doctors’ orders to give his eyes a rest, Grant and his family pulled up stakes in New York and headed for his first love, the wide open spaces and the good earth.  They settled on 200 acres of land belonging to his wife, Elizabeth Fewell, a native of Rock Hill.  

Growing up on the prairies of South Dakota, Grant had fond memories of farm life that often surfaced in his mind.  He knew he was a farmer at heart. Within six years of the Grants moving to Rock Hill, those original 200 acres had grown to 670 acres, producing lespedeza and fescue seed by the ton.  

“I’ve made more money from farming than I ever have from art,” said the noted artist and illustrator in an article in the Fall 1959 Esso Farm NEWS.  “Art has been a great source of personal satisfaction to me, but its farming I really love.”   

He became a valuable and respected spokesperson for the farmers of South Carolina.  The future Farmers of America awarded Vernon Grant an honorary degree as Chapter Farmer in 1971 and the Catawba Soil Conservation District awarded Grant a certificate of merit for “Outstanding Accomplishments in Soil Conservation” in 1953-54.