Grampa's death in Chapter 13 was actually somewhat strange. He only lasted about five chapters, some of which not containing him. To be fair, he was just comic relief with about two or three different jokes, all of them based around his senility.
My theory is that he was killed off because he wasn't really bringing much to the story; he was just a senile old man who really wanted to go to California, going into great detail about eating grapes and how he was going to do so. It's possible that Steinbeck figured that Grampa would serve more as a memory than as recurring character, so he was removed. Alternatively, it shows that it's going to be a rough journey, with many people leaving one way or another.
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