Claudia Louise (Hand) Graser

Claudia Louise Hand Graser

1937 ~ 2025

Claudia Louise Graser, better known as “Nana” to her children and grandchildren, passed away at the Highland Glen Memory Care Center in Highland, Utah, on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. Having been stricken with dementia in her final years, she departed this life with very few memories left in her once vibrant mind but she left behind a treasure trove of memories never to be forgotten by her loving family and friends.

She was born on November 26, 1937, in the California Lutheran Hospital in Los Angeles to William Earl Hand and Oretel Macbeth. Later, two siblings would join the family, her younger sister Beverly and their little brother Dennis, both of whom preceded her in death. She dearly loved them and was often heard saying, “Why are the youngest ones taken first?” She never doubted that they would be waiting for her when she arrived on the other side, but she often wished that she would have been the one waiting for them.

In her early childhood in California, her parents moved between Los Angeles, Monrovia, Long Beach, and Westchester, before finally settling when Claudia was a teenager on Le Bourget Avenue in Culver City, a place she would always remember as home. She graduated from Culver City High School at the age of 17 and immediately began her undergraduate studies at UCLA where she met her first husband, Dwight Vincent Call, in a biology class. They married in 1956 and had three daughters, Jeanene, Doreen, and Carrie. Their marriage later ended in divorce.

She found her life’s work in the education profession. Out of necessity as a single mother raising three children, she went back to school and earned a Bachelor’s degree from California State University Northridge (CSUN) and then began instructing high school students in various public schools in the Burbank, Valencia, and Los Angeles School Districts. She later earned a Master’s degree from the College of St. Thomas. Her specialty was math, accounting, and business. She often spoke lovingly of the students at Crenshaw High School in inner city Los Angeles. Crenshaw was a difficult Title I school where teachers were required to keep their doors locked during class time, but Claudia felt like a parent to many of the troubled students. She would counsel them on her own time in the hour before school started. 

She found her eternal companion, Floyd Robert Graser, while attending a church single adult activity in southern California. They were sealed in the Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and spent the rest of their lives loving and helping Claudia’s three daughters and their families. “Nana” and “Grandpa Bob” became the heart, soul and center of a family that grew to 16 grandchildren and currently 47 great grandchildren. Bob preceded Claudia in death by six years. 

As a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Claudia loved to serve in quiet callings where she was not required to speak or pray in public. Her specialities were ward magazine representative, Primary, Sunday School, Sacrament meeting, and Relief Society chorister, and Sacrament meeting program coordinator. She also served weekly for decades in genealogy callings that fulfilled her love of family history. The only LDS seminary class she attended as a youth was the semester they studied genealogy. That class launched a lifelong family research project that took her on many adventures and that brought sacred temple ordinances to hundreds of ancestors. In addition, she was one of the first name extraction workers in the Church and served in this calling for decades. She was also one of the first indexing workers in the Church and served in this calling until a few years ago. Her contributions to the Church through family history work is enormous. She was asked once how many names she had indexed, and she said, “Well, around a million.”

Claudia was a talented musician and sang in numerous choirs. While living in the San Fernando Valley, she sang soprano in the Maryann Mendenhall Women's Chorale. This choir worked with Lex de Azevedo which led to opportunities for Claudia to sing in the iconic “Saturday’s Warrior” musical. The choir also received an invitation from the Israeli government to perform in Tel Aviv. Later, as a member of the Granada Hills Chorale, Claudia was able to perform in Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. 

Claudia was a generous person. She never turned anyone away who needed a place to stay. Children and grandchildren were always welcome to find refuge in her home. She called the basement in her Highland home the “Rooming House.” Sometimes short stays turned into long stays, but that didn’t bother Claudia, it just made her happier. Her home was also the family store because she always bought two or three of the one thing she needed. She always said, “Check here first before you go buy it.”

Claudia once said that she would never move to Utah because California was where she was born and raised and where she would stay forever. But after her children married and left home and after her parents and brother passed away, she immigrated to Utah and settled in Highland, just a mile from her daughter, Doreen. These turned out to be wonderful years for Doreen and her family. These were the years when Doreen’s children and husband would make special trips to Nana’s house to raid the pantry for trail mix and cookies and the refrigerator for fizzy drinks fondly called Grandpa Bob Specials.

The last five days of Claudia’s life were nearly unbearable as she lay in a tortured sleep unable to speak, eat or drink, and under the influence of powerful painkillers. But on the very few occasions when she was able to halfway open her eyes, one could still see the forever smile she always wore and the welcoming love she exuded from a heart that always embraced you with total and complete acceptance. 

Services will be held Monday, July 21, 2025, at 11:00 AM at the Highland 15th Ward, 5212 West Country Club Drive, Highland. Family and friends are welcome to visit Monday morning from 9:30–10:30 prior to the services. Interment will be at the Highland City Cemetery, 6200 West 11000 North, Highland. A guestbook to post tributes and memories for the family is available at www.warenski.com.

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