October 2, 1922 – December 29, 2015
by Rosalie Fonda, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Durham, NC, 2016
Elizabeth Spencer Gray
The daughter of Mary Elizabeth Benton Spencer and Percy C. Spencer, Elizabeth Spencer Gray was born in Greenville, North Carolina in 1922. She completed high school and took college and graduate classes in Early Childhood Education at the University of North Carolina, Greenville, North Carolina State University, and The Gesell Institute of Child Development in New Haven, Connecticut. Beth was the mother of five children and a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church.
From 1950 to 1955 Beth taught classes out of her home in Durham. In 1961 she helped establish a kindergarten and preschool for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, then on West Club Boulevard. Several years later she designed and equipped the new building for St. Luke’s Kindergarten and Preschool when the church moved to its new and current site on Hillandale Road. The school accommodated 110 children and was open to children of all denominations and faiths. All classrooms had innovative observation windows so that parents and visiting teachers could observe activities in the classroom. Now called The Gray Building in honor of Beth Gray, this original school site now houses LEAP (Latino Education Achievement Program), along with Preschool tutoring and Sunday School classes.
In the early 1960s Beth was a consultant and taught classes in early childhood development and kindergarten curriculum to the first teachers of Head Start in Durham. She was also a consultant for the first public school kindergartens in Durham and gave workshops on kindergarten curriculum and child development for teachers new to this period of education. She also served on the council of The Child Guidance Center, directed by Duke University.
Beth taught and directed the St. Luke’s Kindergarten and Preschool for more than 50 years, until her retirement in 2007 at the age of 85. Following retirement she remained vitally interested in all things related to early childhood education in North Carolina.
In 2007 the governor of North Carolina, Michael Easley, conferred upon Beth Gray The Order of the Long Leaf Pine in recognition of her “integrity, learning and zeal” during her long and innovative career in early childhood education. Upon her death in 2015, memorial gifts were requested as donations in her memory to the Grey Stone Preschool and Kindergarten in Durham, where Beth’s teaching program and philosophy continue.