Maxine Grimm loved to encourage others to live healthy lives and she gladly shared her recipe for longevity.
“You have to exercise your body, your mind and your spirit every day,” she said in a past interview for a story in the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.
“And play a little piano every day, too.” she added.
That recipe served her well, as Maxine, a well-known Tooele philanthropist with a long history of serving her nation, state, community and church, passed away Friday at the age of 102.
Born in Tooele City on May 18, 1914 to Joseph Earl and Bertha Shields Tate, Maxine came into the world on the eve of World War I and one year after the Lincoln Highway opened Tooele County to transcontinental travel and Ford’s Model T.
She recalled her childhood in Tooele as happy, although her family, like most others in Tooele at the time, was poor. As a teenager during the Great Depression, she said her wardrobe consisted of just two dresses — one for Sundays and another for every other day.
She also recalled living in Tooele City during a time when the community was small and tight-knit. Back then it took a lot longer than 30 minutes to drive to downtown Salt Lake City. As a result, Tooele’s remote, rural setting lent itself to strong community bonds as residents developed their own brand of self-sufficiency, Maxine said.
“The town was small, it was a lot like a big family,” she said. “Everybody pitched in and helped each other. I remember my Grandmother Lottie Shields taking care of everyone in town who was sick. People took care of people and there was a wonderful, caring feeling in the community.”
Maxine graduated valedictorian from Tooele High School in 1932, earned a degree in retailing and business from the University of Utah, and then a master’s degree in retailing from New York University.
Afterward, she returned to Utah and worked as a buyer for department store chain ZCMI. Just as World War II began in Europe, Maxine married her childhood sweetheart, attorney Veldon Shields. But her dream marriage was tragically cut short seven months later after Shields unexpectedly died of natural causes.
That loss put Maxine’s life arc on a trajectory that led to adventures she had never considered. She returned to New York City and immersed herself in work, along with her faith, to heal from grief. While there, she helped smuggle Jewish people out of war-torn Europe and find homes for them in New York.
Maxine chose to help even more after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the United States entered World War II, she joined the Red Cross, worked at a hospital in New Guinea, and then organized a refuge camp in the Philippines. Her main assignment in the Red Cross was to build morale in U.S. soldiers, working as a recreational director and vocational therapist.
As the war ended, Maxine took over the infamous Tokyo Rose’s studio and broadcast, which she used to do public relations work for the Red Cross as well as promote her LDS faith.
Maxine met future LDS Church President Gordon Hinckley when, on one of her trips back to Utah, she went to Salt Lake City to pick up Mormon Tabernacle Choir records to play on her radio show.
Maxine later assisted Hinckley in establishing the LDS Church in the post-war Republic of the Philippines where she lived with her new husband, U.S. Army Colonel and Manila-based entrepreneur Edward Miller “Pete” Grimm, whom she met in the Philippines during the war and married in 1947.
“I cannot praise her efforts too highly,” then President Hinckley told the Church News about Maxine in 1993. “She was a genuine pioneer in the work in that Island nation where we have now a very substantial Church membership.”
The Grimm’s home was the location for early church activities in the Philippines. Most of the first LDS baptisms were performed in the swimming pool at their home.
“[The pool] couldn’t have been more perfect,” Maxine said. “It was the proper size. There was a little house beside it. I had every animal you could think of there and they’d watch the baptisms from their cages, absolutely fascinated.”
Through the years following the war, Maxine and Pete lived in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Before the war, Pete had a business in water transportation, regulating ports.
After the war he recovered that business and maintained interests in mining, pearl farming and other endeavors that called for a lot of traveling, Maxine said.
The Grimms entertained generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower. Every LDS Church president since David O. McKay had either visited them in the Philippines or at their home in Tooele.
Maxine returned home to Tooele to give birth to her two children, Linda and Pete. Afterward, the family returned overseas. Maxine’s husband passed away in 1977 while they were living in the Philippines. Traveling back and forth for 11 years, Maxine eventually settled down in Tooele in 1988 at the age of 74, in the home she and her husband built.
After returning to Tooele, Maxine devoted her life to family, church, community and state. She served as a member of the Brigham Young University Roundtable, chairwoman of the Tooele County Museum, a member of the Salt Lake Opera board and chairwoman of the Utah State Centennial Commission.
Maxine was also instrumental in preserving the Benson Gristmill property. She helped write the script for and performed in the Benson Gristmill Pageant, which tells the story of pioneers settling Tooele Valley.
She was chairwoman of Tooele County’s Safe at Home committee, a neighborhood watch program in 2005. In 2007 she was also chairwoman for the Utah Attorney General’s Safe at Home Committee, and was honored as Citizen of the Year by the Tooele City Police Department for her many years of service.
At age 96, Maxine was also highly active in Tooele’s battle against the proposed Rocky Mountain Power Line route across the east bench of Tooele and testified at public meetings. Also at 96, she served as grand marshal in Tooele City’s Fourth of July parade.
When Maxine turned 100 years old, she reflected, “I feel I was born to serve. I need to continue what my ancestors that settled this valley did — make it a beautiful and peaceful place.”
On her 100th birthday, Tooele City Mayor Patrick Dunlavy said, “Maxine has been a pillar of our community for a long time. I have known her my entire life and I have the deepest respect for her. She has been very generous to the community over the years. Maxine has made Tooele a better place.”
According to her obituary on page A6, visitation will be held Friday from 6-8 p.m. at Tate Morturary, 110 S. Main St., Tooele. Visitation will also be held Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and the funeral at 11 a.m., both in the Skyline Ward Building, 777 Skyline Dr., Tooele. Interment will be at Tooele City Cemetery at 361 S. 100 East.