Gration, known by his middle name Scott, was born in St. Charles, Illinois, the son of Dorothy E. (née Harpel) and John Alexander Gration. His paternal grandparents were British. He spent his early childhood in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (then the Belgian Congo, later Zaïre) and Kenya, while his parents worked as missionary teachers. The first sentence he ever spoke was in Kiswahili, and he has been a Kiswahili speaker his entire life. During the Congo Crisis in the early 1960s, his family was evacuated three times, and they became refugees, relocating to Kenya after the third evacuation in 1964.