Margery F.  Grace

On Tuesday April 9, Margery F. Grace died unexpectedly at her home in Trumansburg. The cause was sudden cardiac arrest, while she tended a flower bed. She was the wife of Charles C. Grace, Jr.

Margery was born on December 11, 1931 and raised in Laytonsville, Maryland, the youngest of five children born to Edwin D. and Susan Ransome Fry. She grew up on a busy dairy farm, in a family noted for its involvement with progressive farming techniques. They were active proponents of the Maryland 4-H and cooperative extension programs. In 1941, she and her sister appeared on the cover of the U.S. Department of Agriculture publication, Our National Defense Starts With Defense of the Home , the girls happily peeling apples in the kitchen with their mother.

She graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1952, with a degree in Home Economics Education. As a student, her organizational skills and sociable personality led to a job in the registrar’s office, where she continued to work after graduation. In 1956, she moved to Tokyo, Japan, to establish the registrar’s office for a new Far East Division of the University of Maryland’s Overseas Program. By 1959, she had become the Registrar for the entire European Division, based in Heidelberg, Germany—serving ten thousand students before the advent of computers. In June of 1963 she married Charles C. Grace, Jr., who was a lecturer in English.

American friends in Europe drew them to Ithaca later in 1963, where Charles completed graduate studies at Cornell University and began a teaching career at Ithaca College. Margery worked as the assistant to the dean of Cornell’s School of Human Ecology.

In 1966, they moved to Trumansburg, where Margery devoted herself to community work. She logged over 6,000 hours as a volunteer at the Ulysses Philomathic Library and actively supported the Trumansburg school system. She had a deep and lasting passion for travel, regularly visiting old friends in England, Europe, and the U.S., rarely leaving without new ones, but she always loved coming home to Trumansburg and her many friends here.

Survivors include her husband, Charles, and two sons, C. Christopher Grace (Kathleen Roberts) of Boston, MA and David H. Grace of Madison, WI; two grandchildren, David F. Grace and Amy E. Grace of Boston; a brother, Frederick A. Fry of Sudlersville, Maryland, and many devoted nieces and nephews.

A Memorial Service will be held at 2:00pm on Saturday, May 25 at the First Presbyterian Church of Ulysses, 69 E. Main Street, Trumansburg. A reception will follow from 3:00 to 5:00pm at the Ulysses Philomathic Library.

Those wishing to make donations in her memory are asked to consider the Ulysses Philomathic Library, 74 East Main St., Trumansburg NY, 14886.