Larger text Larger text Smaller text Smaller text Print E-mail

Duquesne Brewery head was avid sportsman

By Michael Yeomans, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, November 14, 2005
Standing nearly 6 foot 7, Grant E. Friday embodied his family nickname of "Big Bear."

Although he was an avid hunter and outdoorsman, the name carried a gentler connotation -- of someone who wrote his wife daily poetry and participated alongside her physical therapy sessions after she suffered a stroke, and who once coached his eldest son on how to act even as he pretended to scold him over poor grades, as his wife had demanded.

Grant E. Friday, of Fox Chapel, former president of Duquesne Brewing Co. on the South Side and longtime Pittsburgh stockbroker, died Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005, at Forbes Hospice. He was 90.

Harriet Friday Leahy, the second of Mr. Friday's eight children, said her father reveled in holiday traditions.

"Every year at Thanksgiving he would padlock the door to the play room in the basement and tell us that Santa and his elves were working down there," she said. "On Christmas morning we would be allowed down and the room would be filled with trains and platforms and fountains and villages. It was amazing."

Eldest son Grant Friday Jr. said that as he grew older he helped his father construct the elaborate setup.

"He put a great deal of time into that in the late '40s, early '50s," he said.

Leahy said she and her older sister took ballet, and her father, all 6 feet 6 1/2 inches of him, would encourage them to practice by jumping and doing pirouettes.

"Even with eight children, he was unflappable," she said.

After having two daughters, Mr. Friday and his wife, Harriet Smith Friday, followed with six sons. After the birth of their last child, Mr. Friday joked, "I ran out of chromosome X."

Mr. Friday's brother, Dr. Rupert Friday, of Tucson, Ariz., said Mr. Friday and he spent many happy childhood days hunting in the Sewickley woods after their father moved into their grandmother's house, which sat on 28 acres.

The hunting trips continued into adulthood.

"We bred bird dogs together and we would hunt grouse nearly every year in Minnesota before the season started (in Pennsylvania)," he said. "He was my best friend and the best man in my wedding."

Also an avid golfer, skeet shooter and fly fisherman, Mr. Friday received the Roger Latham Award as sportsman of the year from the Pittsburgh Sportsmen Luncheon Club, of which he was former president. He was also a lifetime master in bridge.

Mr. Friday was born in Pittsburgh on March 26, 1915, to John Aloysius Friday and the former Ann Hermes. His mother died when he was young, and he was educated at Georgetown Preparatory School and then went to Georgetown College in Washington D.C.

Though tall, he was not particularly athletic, giving up on basketball after his freshman year at Georgetown. He later blamed his inability to dribble.

Rupert Friday said his brother went into the family brewing business with their other brother, John. Their father had consolidated the family's interests in several Pittsburgh area breweries into the Duquesne Brewing Co. after the repeal of Prohibition.

The two brothers operated the business, which grew to be one of the larger regional breweries in the country, after their father's death. Grant Friday Jr. said they were forced out in a leveraged buyout in the late 1960s by a group that later liquidated the company's assets.

Mr. Friday joined Reed Lear, a stock brokerage firm, in 1968. The firm later merged with Dean, Witter Reynolds, from which Mr. Friday retired in 1986.

Mr. Friday is survived by his wife of 66 years, Harriet "Happy" Smith Friday; eight children, Joan Ewing, of Mt. Lebanon, Harriet Friday Leahy, of New York City, Grant E. Friday Jr., of Shadyside, Robert S. Friday, of Upper St. Clair, Thomas E. Friday, of Upper St. Clair, Rupert Friday, of Rhode Island, Gregg Friday, of Cheswick and Geoff Friday, of Harmar; a brother, Dr. Rupert Friday, of Tucson, Ariz.; a sister, Ruth DeBold; 20 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his brother John Friday.

Friends will be received from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. Tuesday at Weddell-Ajak Funeral Home, 100 Center Ave., Aspinwall. Christian funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Scholasitca Church in Aspinwall.

The family asks that memorials be in the form of donations to the American Heart Association or the American Cancer Society.


More Regional headlines

Subscribe to the Tribune-Review today



Advertising Information | Advertiser List | About our ads