{"id":218656,"date":"2026-05-04T00:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T00:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218656\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T00:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T00:17:16","slug":"grace-gray-faison-grande-dame-of-brooklyn-heights-dies-at-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218656\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Gray Faison, grande dame of Brooklyn Heights, dies at 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS \u2014 Grace Gray Faison, one of the iconic matrons of Brooklyn Heights, passed away on April 26 at the age of 101, and with her a host of memories of an earlier era.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She generously shared those memories with her neighbors and friends as the years went by, and also dropped a few late-life surprises.<\/p>\n

Faison retained her sharp memory, self-depreciating sense of humor and boundless optimism throughout her years.<\/p>\n

A sixth-generation Brooklyn Heights resident \u2014 a member of the Heights Casino squash and social club, a leader at Plymouth Church, a supporter of nonprofits \u2014 Faison\u2019s life blended seamlessly into the social fabric of the neighborhood. To the end, she projected the very image of white gloves and pearls \u2014 and later acknowledged using this image to achieve behind-the-scenes works of charity and social justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"GraceGrace Faison. Photo courtesy of her family<\/p>\n

Faison was one of the few residents who recalled sledding beneath the former Montague Street \u201cPenny Bridge\u201d; playing in Miss White\u2019s exclusive garden before Pierrepont Playground was built; and rubbing shoulders with \u201cmaster builder\u201d Robert Moses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was born on Oct. 30, 1924 to Horatio King Gray, president of the Turl Engineering Works, and Annabel Andrews Gray. Both were influential members of the Heights community.<\/p>\n

She attended Packer Collegiate Institute, then an all-girls school, and took ballroom dance classes at Grace Church. After graduating from Katherine Gibbs School in Manhattan, Faison took a job doing the books for Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, founder of Greenwich House, a settlement house in Manhattan. Eleanor Roosevelt came by on Wednesdays, and Faison would make tea for the two women, sometimes being invited to sit and chat.<\/p>\n

More than anything else, Faison was a central member of the Plymouth Church community for more than 70 years, where she served on numerous committees. Her great-great-grandfather, John Tasker Howard, was one of the institution\u2019s original founding fathers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandmother was a force of nature and she will be so missed,\u201d said her granddaughter Jenny Faison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Church members describe Faison as an \u201cunforgettable presence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Party-goersParty-goers raised a toast, sang \u2018Happy Birthday\u2019 and cut the cake to celebrate Grace Faison\u2019s 100th year on Sunday, Nov. 3. Photo: Mary Frost\/Brooklyn Eagle<\/p>\n

As longtime head of Plymouth\u2019s Garden Committee, she spearheaded the reclamation of the \u201cLost Acre,\u201d a shady stretch of land east of the church\u2019s sanctuary. In an unsanctioned operation (she seldom asked permission, church leader Jim Waechter said on her birthday last year) \u2014 Faison rescued the half-ton 1870s-vintage cast-iron bell that once hung in the steeple of Plymouth<\/a> when it was located at 56 Cranberry St.<\/p>\n

The bell is currently the centerpiece of a garden on Orange Street, at the entrance to the Lost Acre. The garden was dedicated Nov. 3, 2024, on the occasion of her 100th birthday<\/a>, as the \u201cGrace Faison Bell Garden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine anything else that would make me feel that I\u2019ve spent some time on this earth,\u201d she told the crowd at the dedication. \u201cWhen you plant a garden, you feel as though you have lived, and you\u2019ve enjoyed, and I\u2019m so glad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FaisonFaison rescued this 1870s-vintage cast-iron bell, now the centerpiece of a garden dedicated to her. Photo: Mary Frost\/Brooklyn Eagle
\nFirst husband perished at sea<\/p>\n

Faison\u2019s first husband, George Jeffers\u00a0Stockly\u00a0Jr., was a Navy officer \u2014 \u201ca Princeton guy,\u201d she told Brooklyn Heights Association volunteer Andrew Nodell in a videotaped conversation<\/a>. He perished at sea two weeks after the end of World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a typhoon off Okinawa and he was washed overboard a week before my son was born. And so I came home from the hospital to a fourth-floor walk up at 6 Willow St., which is no longer there, on my own, and I was a widow for four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She raised their son Jeff alone, until she met John Faison \u2014 \u201ca wonderful man\u201d \u2014 and they married in December 1948.\u00a0Everybody liked Jack, she said. \u201cJack was probably on every board in Brooklyn at one point or another.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She worked in the real estate business for the Cruikshank Company in Manhattan,\u00a0and for 13 years at the former Independence Savings Bank\u00a0on Atlantic Avenue\u00a0in Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their daughter Sandy was born in 1950. Jeff went on to a career in law enforcement, and Sandy became a Broadway actress and singer. Faison has five grandchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"GraceGrace Faison at a young age. Photo: Grace Faison\u2019s family
\nA link to old Brooklyn Heights<\/p>\n

Faison was frequently asked to describe early Brooklyn Heights by journalists and historians. One favorite topic was the legendary Miss White\u2019s Garden, described by the Brooklyn Eagle\u2019s Lore Croghan in 2013 as \u201cone of the most extraordinary<\/a> of Brooklyn Heights open spaces in private hands that anyone can remember.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Miss White, the wealthy sister of philanthropist Alfred Treadway White, resided in a mansion that sat where Pierrepont Playground is now. (This was before the Promenade.) She maintained the private fenced-in garden across Pierrepont Place on property now occupied by two art deco apartment houses \u2014 57 Montague St. and 2 Pierrepont St.<\/p>\n

Miss White would allow young neighborhood mothers to visit her for tea if they wished to win her favor and \u2014 if they passed muster \u2014 be given a key to the garden to take their children inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Faison, by then a widow raising her toddler son alone during the final years before the garden\u2019s 1948 closing, recounted receiving permission to visit Miss White for tea.<\/p>\n

She told the Brooklyn Heights Press during the 1970s, \u201cYoung mothers knew they must wear white gloves when they went to that tea with Miss White. That was almost like a secret password to win her favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GraceGrace Faison played a pivotal role in establishing the \u201cLost Acre\u201d garden at Plymouth Church. Photo: Mary Frost\/Brooklyn Eagle<\/p>\n

Faison told Nodell that the couple regularly socialized with Robert Moses. One year they took him to the Harvest Moon Ball, a popular dance competition in Manhattan. \u201cSeeing people dance like that, it\u2019s just wonderful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But then she found out that Moses \u201cwanted to put a highway right down the block,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were not going to let him do that. \u2026 So we sat on him really hard so that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Was Moses nice? \u201cWell, he was interesting. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d use the word nice,\u201d she told Nodell. \u201cHe was not cozy. I like cozy. I\u2019m very big on cozy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GraceGrace Faison, left, with Kathleen Wolf. Photo: Mary Frost\/Brooklyn Eagle
\nShe knew how to keep a secret<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t unusual for Faison to quietly assist those whom others wrote off as \u201clost causes,\u201d congregation members said. \u201cWe are all connected,\u201d she would say. \u201cWe cannot do it alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one of her private acts of charity created a certain frisson when, after remaining silent for 50 years, she revealed to New York Magazine\u2019s \u201cThe Cut\u201d in 2022 that during the late \u201960s and early \u201970s, at the request of Plymouth Minister Harry Kruener, she had secretly put up<\/a> women in her spacious Heights apartment while they obtained then-illegal abortions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She utilized her facade as doyenne of Brooklyn Heights to carry it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody questioned me. I was Grace Faison,\u201d she told \u201cThe Cut\u2019s\u201d Eliza Gray. \u201cMy family lived in Brooklyn Heights. I had friends coming and going. We did a lot of entertaining in that apartment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her mature years, Faison continued to use her position in society to do good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing I do at Plymouth now is support the Mission School of Hope in Cameroon,\u201d she told Nodell. Faison and two others gave a cocktail party to raise money for the children there. \u201cWe raised enough money for 500 children to be fed for a year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"GraceGrace Faison played a pivotal role in establishing the \u201cLost Acre\u201d garden at Plymouth Church. Photo: Mary Frost\/Brooklyn Eagle<\/p>\n

She was also active in Plymouth\u2019s History Ministry, supporting lectures on topics like Abraham Lincoln and the Underground Railroad. (Pew 89, where Lincoln sat when he attended services at Plymouth, is marked by a small plaque.)<\/p>\n

At her 100th birthday party there, she thanked her fellow congregants and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason you keep going in life is because of friendships, and being connected and caring for each other,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of you who have cared for me have meant so much to me and kept me going, and I just want to say thank you to all of you for being part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

She leaves her son\u00a0Jeff,\u00a0of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, her\u00a0daughter\u00a0Sandy,\u00a0in Brooklyn Heights, and her\u00a0grandchildren\u00a0John, Jenny and Jeffrey Faison and Molly and Lucy Brush.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plymouth Church will celebrate her life at 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 23. In lieu of flowers, gifts in her name to the church are welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROOKLYN HEIGHTS \u2014 Grace Gray Faison, one of the iconic matrons of Brooklyn Heights, passed away on April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,6748,8516,99,86190,5324,9,24,5325,63,15076,86191],"class_list":["post-218656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-heights","tag-brooklyn-heights-association-bha","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-grace-faison","tag-mary-frost","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-no-paywall","tag-nyc","tag-obituaries-obituary","tag-plymouth-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}