Marjorie Patterson Graybeal

Marjorie “Pat” Graybeal was born on February 17, 1923, in Winston-Salem, NC, to Thomas Pearson Patterson and Frances O. Whitlow Patterson. She had three older siblings, Tom, Bill, and Jean, and a younger sister, Betty. After attending public schools in her hometown, she began college at Peace Junior College in Raleigh, NC, and earned her BA at Agnes Scott College, in Decatur, Georgia. She majored in English and minored in psychology and was from an early age an avid supporter of civil rights. She became a youth worker with the Presbyterian Church, and earned a Master’s in English Bible at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA. She was planning to become a missionary when she met David M. Graybeal at a summer course at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and her plans changed. They were married in 1948.

Dave was entering the ministry, and they spent the early years of their marriage in New Haven, Connecticut, where he earned his PhD at Yale Divinity School. Their two daughters, Jean McConnell and Lee Anne, were born during this time (1949 and 1951). The family moved to Emory and Henry College in Emory, VA, and son Clay Thomas was born in 1953. In 1956, they moved to Madison, NJ, where Dave taught at the Drew Theological Seminary. Pat continued church work and teaching and studied viola and modern dance. The family spent the academic year of 1962-63 in Alsace, France, where Pat studied sculpture with Paul Spindler.

On returning to NJ, Pat remained active in civil rights work, Democratic party work, and tutoring graduate students in French. She and Dave studied intentional communities together and traveled to Denmark to study social welfare institutions. Together they laid the foundations for the Drew seminary course, “The Search for the Good Community.” In 1975, she and Dave divorced, and she held a variety of positions in the business world, including Stone and Webster Management Consultants, and Creative Services at Chase Bank in New York City. She also decided at this time to be called “Marge” or “Marjorie".

Upon Marge’s retirement, she worked part-time in the library of Drew University and continued to be active in the community and in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. She later moved to New Paltz, New York, near Jean’s home, and finally to Portland, Maine, near Lee and Clay and Deb, where she began to live at 75 State Street, an independent living facility.

Marjorie enjoyed excellent health and an active life until her very last years. She traveled to England, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico, Russia, and China. She always loved to read, to write, to listen to music and to paint. She died peacefully in her favorite chair on the morning of May 20, 2022. She is survived by her daughter Jean Graybeal (Sète, France) and her husband, Vince Prudente, daughter Lee Anne Graybeal (Kennebunk, ME), her son Clay Thomas Graybeal and his wife Deb Hall (Arundel, ME), and grandson Daniel Peifer and his wife Sam, and great-granddaughter Elizabeth.