Bev Grant is, by any measure, a survivor. Her early life began in a Methodist home where her father served as a deacon and she was an active participant in the church. She found a sense of belonging there and even served as president of the Methodist Youth Fellowship.

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But, Bev says, unlike the safety she felt at church, life was not good at home. Bev describes her father as an abuser—of five wives over the course of his life. He subjected both her and her mother, his second wife, to verbal, psychological, and physical violence. Many memories remain and are painful for her. She recalls her father kicking her mother when she was pregnant, so hard that she required hospitalization and ultimately miscarried. She remembers being beaten herself and, more than once,  knocked down the stairs. On another occasion, when her father was challenged during a game of croquet, he struck her on the back of the neck with a croquet mallet.

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There were moments when Bev thought her father might kill her. Even when he wasn’t physically violent, he exerted control in other ways—refusing to let her attend important events, forbidding her from reading after 5 p.m. He created an environment so unsettling that she never invited her friends over lest he become angry and violent.

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Bev has tried to understand what shaped her father. He grew up as the fifth of nineteen children in what she describes as “hillbilly country”—Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. One vivid childhood memory from visiting her grandmother there was the nightly choice she face when she had to go to the bathroom at night: either use a coffee can indoors or go to the outhouse outside, where she might have to dodge the snakes. “Humbling, to say the least,” she says now.

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She also tried to understand her mother, Ruth. Abandoned, she was left for years in the home of a minister. She apparently grew up with emotional wounds and relied on Valium to manage her fear and stress—hence Bev’s description of her as a “Valley girl.” Ruth married young, at 20, to Bev’s father, Tom, who was 17 years older and already divorced. Perhaps her marriage was an escape from her difficult upbringing. She often described herself as a “Victorian” woman who believed that a woman marries for life and that “you take what you get.”

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She endured a lot of abuse under that belief. But when Bev left for college, Ruth determined that she couldn’t stay married to Tom without the protection of her daughter. Without Bev’s presence, she feared Tom would kill her, and she gained the courage to divorce Tom.

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Even as a teenager—around age fourteen—Bev knew she needed a way to protect herself, not just whine and complain. She decided to join the local Mormon church, where she could play basketball,  escape the dangers at home, and, as she later put it, “feel like a good person.” Because Mormon activities were held on Saturdays, she could leave the house in gym clothes, and her father never suspected she was going to church. 

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In time, she joined the church. She felt loved and accepted. She made her testimony, abstained from alcohol, coffee, and chocolate, and even dreamed of serving a mission, even though girls were not permitted to do so. This, she realized, was an early clue that the church might not be for her. Another clue was the church’s policy barring Black members from serving as Deacons or missionaries. She could not reconcile herself to the church’s racism.

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Leaving for college was a freeing experience. She was finally beyond her father’s terror and prohibitions, and she was free to make her own choices. That included the freedom to read without interruption. 

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At college, she remained involved in the Mormon fellowship, but her doubts increased. She began questioning the church, Joseph Smith, and his wives. When the church introduced her to a 30-year-old man as a prospective husband, she knew immediately: “That wasn’t for me.” Bev wanted to make her own decisions. She left the Mormon church and came to see herself, in her words, as “an agnostic, divorced from religion. Done with it.”

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College gave her a feeling of safety that she had not felt before. She chose not to return home during school breaks, and her mother understood. In fact, mother and daughter began quietly “colluding” as Bev later described it, on how to cope with her father, her mother’s husband. The path began to open for Ruth to divorce Tom.

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During a break in her freshman year, instead of going home, Bev went to see a psychiatrist. He helped her see that the man who was her biological father had never truly been a “dad” to her. A real “dad,” he explained, is present in his daughter’s life—interested in her school activities, attending her basketball games, supporting her choices, and offering love and care.

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He gave her practical advice. He told her, when her father called and threatened her, she should hang up. Bev still remembers his words: “If you cry, he wins. He’ll keep going as long as he knows he can reach you. He won’t stop until you hang up.” She saw the psychiatrist only once, but she can still remember his advice: protect yourself, and carry no guilt. The man was, in the psychiatrist’s words, “just a biological sperm-meet-egg —not a dad.”

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After her mother divorced her father, he went on to marry and divorce three more times. The psychiatrist’s counsel helped Bev move forward, though she says she didn’t truly feel free until she was in her forties.

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She left the Morman Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). It seemed the right thing to do, given her doubts about God and prayer, but she missed the sense of belonging it had provided. “I missed being part of the church,” she said. “There was no violence there. I was a good person and wanted to be with others who are good.” Nevertheless, she did not want to belong to a church that required surrendering her independence or freedom of thought. Religion became less important in her life, and her focus turned instead to earning her degree. “Religion,” she reflected, “has not been important during the rest of my life.”

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In college, Bev appreciated the freedom to make her own choices. She studied literature and then went on to pursue broadcasting in graduate school. Reminiscent of discouragement followed her. She remembers a broadcasting professor, Dr. Jules R., telling her that she was “a goddam dumb shiska (non-Jewish).” She thinks he wanted to “toughen” her for the harsh realities she would face as a woman in the male-dominated broadcasting world of New York City.

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He was right. After marrying and moving to New York, Bev discovered that women were not welcome in broadcasting. Fortunately, being the survivor that she had become, Bev drew on the found other ways to share her talents. She began teaching at Taylor Business Institute on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and later, after relocating to San Diego, taught high school. There, she extended her classroom beyond its walls, leading students on trips, often around the world. Her trips sometimes included visits to places of worship of many faiths, which she viewed as valuable educational opportunities.

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Bev says religion holds no importance in her life today. She has moved beyond it. Instead, she finds God in nature, in skiing through falling snow, watching sunlight catch on tree branches, or traveling through unfamiliar landscapes. “That’s my sanctuary,” she says. “I’m in awe of nature. Isn’t the world great?” In those quiet moments, simple pleasures feel “holy.”

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While religion is of no important today, Bev is deeply committed to being “good.” She has volunteered and contributed generously to organizations such as Planned Parenthood and many other charitable causes. Though she does not belong to a church, she respects the good they can do, citing the vital support churches provided for victims of the Los Angeles fires. At the same time, she believes people can help others directly or through secular organizations such as the Red Cross.

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To extend her impact, Bev established a family foundation using resources she inherited from her stepfather (the man her mother later married). Their relationship was complicated—he struggled with alcoholism—but his legacy now enables her to help others.

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Her foundation supports children who have lost limbs and need prosthetics or wheelchairs. One of her favorite occasions is the yearly event La Jolla Cove, where the kids come to compete in sports. Bev admires their strength and spirit and has learned, as they prefer, to call them “differently abled,” not disabled or handicapped.

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“That’s my religion,” she says.

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She has also supported environmental work, including efforts connected to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) which her former husband helped found. With EDF she helped teach families in China to generate electricity by digging methane wells in their backyards. “Their pride was palpable,” she recalls. “Simple, but life-changing.”

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For Bev, meaning comes from action. “Teaching people to do good things, helping people make the world a better place—a safer place—that’s my church,” she says. “Yep, I’m a survivor.”