STRATTON – Carol Mae Cox Gray, 86, of Stratton, went to be with her Lord and Savior Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. She had been living at Sandy River Center in Farmington since July 2009 after suffering a stroke.
Carol was born March 22, 1923 to Maurice Lyle Cox and Gertrude E. (Whittier) Cox in Stratton where she grew up and attended school. She graduated from Stratton High School in 1941, co-valedictorian with her dear friend Myrtle B. Howes. After high school, she attended Kennebec School of Commerce in Gardiner for bookkeeping. After finishing school, she worked in the office at Foster Manufacturing Company in Stratton where she met her future husband who was also working for the company.
She married Robert James Gray, “a Boston boy,” Sept. 15, 1955 in a small ceremony in Stratton. While their three boys were born in Maine, the couple raised them in Massachusetts, moving first to Newton Upper Falls and then Lynnfield where they stayed until they moved back to Maine in 1979. The house the couple purchased in Stratton upon their return was across the street from the Cox family home (after the family moved from their home on Eustis Ridge –what was to become the Eustis Ridge Gift Shop). She and Bob’s new home was a place in which Carol spent a great deal of time in her youth, playing with her childhood friend, Richard Dyer.
In Massachusetts, Carol worked for Transitron and Zayres Department Store, among others, including working as secretary for two different pastors at Trinity Baptist Church in Lynnfield, Douglas Elliot and Howard Keeley, before going to work for the Lynnfield Town Office. In Maine, she worked for Fleet Bank, Fotters’ Market, J&L Brochu, the Cathedral Pines Campground and IP.
She and her husband also started a gift shop, the Come See What We Saw Shop, first in their barn (where Bob also had an ongoing “barn sale” and made custom furniture) and then later after Bob’s passing, in two spare rooms in their house. Many of the items sold in the shop were made by Bob and Carol.
She was an active member of Trinity Baptist Church in Lynnfield, Mass. and upon her return to Maine, an active member of Calvary Bible Church in Stratton. Her church families were very important to her, and so was nearly everyone she met. There seems to have seldom, if ever, been anyone she didn’t like and couldn’t in some way appreciate. She counted so many people, especially around Stratton and Eustis, as special friends. She considered her jobs with the Pines and Fotters in particular, as much extended family as employment.
In her later years, she was known affectionately as the “Pie Lady,” making and selling pies from her home, and making many new friends as well as very loyal pie customers. She was also a member of the Dead River Area Historical Society. A great knitter, many, many kids (and adults for that matter) have mittens Carol made for them over the years. For a time, she sent batches of mittens to Seacoast Mission in Maine to be distributed amongst the islands visited by the ship the Sunbeam, on which her granddaughter, Felicia, was a crew member. Carol served as secretary to the Alumni of the Dead River Area for numerous years and always looked forward to the summer meetings when old friends would gather and visit.
She is survived by her three sons: Robert J. Gray Jr. of Stratton, Burton M. Gray and his wife, Lynne, of Minot and their two daughters, Felicia of Seattle, Wash. and Amanda of Inverness, Fla., and Barry J. Gray of Stratton; a daughter-in-law, Deborah Gray, of Turner and she and Barry’s two boys, Jason and Jonathan; many well-loved cousins, nephews and nieces, including Janet LeClair and Diane Spaulding who often played cards with their “Aunty,” took her places and took as good care of her as her sons did; and during her last couple of years in her home, a very special caring friend, Paula Nile of Stratton and Coplin Plt.
Thank you to all who took the time to visit Carol and bring a little sunshine into her world, whether it was at her home in Stratton or the nursing center in Farmington.
There are far too many folks at Sandy River Center and Androscoggin Home Health and Hospice to name you all, but the family wants every one of you to know that they appreciate your outstanding care and concern for her and the family while she was at Sandy River –thank you so much.
She will be missed by nearly everyone she’s ever known.
Carol was predeceased by her parents; her husband, Robert Sr. in 1991; and her three sisters, Irene LeClair, Olive Viles and Marion Sprague.
A celebration of Carol’s life will be held Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010 at 11 a.m. at Calvary Bible Church, 37 Park Street, Stratton, Maine, with Pastor Bruce Townsend officiating. Following the celebration, a lunch, provided by the church and community, will be served on the lower level of the facility. Everyone is urged to remain to eat and socialize. Interment will be in Upper Cemetery in Eustis alongside her husband. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be given in her memory to the Calvary Bible Church, PO Box 222, Stratton, Maine 04982-0222; or to the Dead River Area Historical Society, PO Box 15, Stratton, Maine 04982-0015. Arrangements are under the care of Adams-McFarlane Funeral & Cremation Services, 108 Court St., Farmington.
