A Man for All Seasons
still hosts the occasional commemorative mass, and it is used periodically for weddings, baptisms, funerals, and impromptu children’ s plays put on by Graham’ s descendants.
After a long illness, Elisabeth Millet Carey died in March 1955 at age 65. The first service held at Christ Sun of Justice Church was her funeral mass. She was buried on the southeast side of the church in what became the family burial plot. Many of the men and women who contributed their labor to the construction of the church attended the service.
Carey sold Sunrise Farm shortly after his wife’ s death and moved to Newport, Rhode Island. In 1956, Graham married Nancy Price, a partner at the John Stevens Shop. The couple had two children, John and Felicity.
Nancy was raised in Newport, Rhode Island and attended the Rhode Island School of Design. She started at the John Stevens Shop as an inscription carver in 1945 but soon became a partner in the firm. Nancy was also known for her skills as a calligrapher and photographer.
“ She always put people first, especially her children,” her son John said. The family resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts for most of the year, but they spent their summers in Benson. In 1969, they returned to Benson full-time, settling in a home that Graham built.
“ When I was young, there seemed to be no end to all of the wonderful and fascinating things that he could tell me,” John said of his father.“ He
had wide and scholarly interests and always encouraged my own curiosity.” Carey tutored his children in Latin and Greek. The family’ s bookshelves were filled with poetry and literature, as well as books on art, architecture, agriculture, history, and theology. He was deeply committed to rural life as well, coming to the aid of his neighbors in their times of need.
His son and grandson both note his remarkable vigor for his age. Graham was 65 when his son, John, was born.“ He was a very loving person. He had so many diverse interests. I latched onto the ones that we shared, or what he cultivated in me,” said David, who grew up at Trinity Farm. Most days, David walked through the woods to his grandparents’ home and spent time with them gardening, tending to trees, and listening to their stories. David and his grandfather shared
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50 VERMONT MAGAZINE