He was born Gerrit Leep in October 1905 and was the third of six children born in Chicago, son of the Dutch couple Edward Leep (29 years old) and Jenny De Vries, who married in 1902 in Chicago, Illinois.

In April 1910 the family lived on a farm in the Roseland and Calumet area in the southern part of Chicago, ward 32.

In 1911 the Leep families moved from Chicago to Canada and settled in the tiny Dutch community of Cramersburg, located in the southwestern part of the southern central Canadian province Saskatchewan, five miles south of the river with the same name and about 10 miles north of Abbey. See for much more info on and photos of Cramersburg and the Leeps: http://www.calvin.edu/hh/origins/Spring89.pdf

In 1923 Garrett's family had to leave Cramersburg because of animal diseases, coldness, grasshopper invasions, drought, dust bowls, several successive crop failures and low grain prices and moved to Highland, Lake County, located in the extreme northwestern part of Indiana, adjacent to Cook County and Chicago in Illinois.

In September 1924 his mother Jennie aka Katie died at the age of 45 years in Highland, Lake County, Indiana.

In April 1930 Garrett Leep (24 years old, born in Illinois, truck farm laborer on home farm), his father Eward Leep (53, Holland, immigrated in 1893, truck farmer), siblings Antony (21, Illinois, truck farm laborer on home farm), Jane (18, Canada), Fannie (16, Canada), James (15, Canada), Sarah (13, Canada) and grandmother Clara Leep (80, Holland) were living on a rented farm at Wicker Park Blvd in Highland, North Township, Lake County. In Highland quite some Dutch settlers came after the construction of a railroad.

In May 1940 Garrett (34, truck driver for a retail dairy), his wife Trena (25, Indiana) were living with their in Hammond and Highland, Indiana born children Earl [Gordon] (5) and Loretta [Jean] (2) in a rented house at Route 41 in Highland Town, Lake County, Indiana.

On June 1, 1940 their daughter Elaine Joyce was born in Hammond, a few miles northwest of Highland, in Lake County too. They had in Highland and Hammond also the children Ruth Ellen (1942), Rowland John (1945), Patricia Kay (1949), Garry Eugene (1952) and Robert Karle (1958).

In May 1990 Garrett Leep died at the age of 85 years in Highland, Lake County, Indiana. His widow Trena died there too, in February 1996, at the age of 81 years.