92 Years on the Hill, and Writing Books: Mary Z. Gray, Signs Books Today

Photo courtesy of the Overbeck Press

Think Capitol Hill has seen a lot of change in the last ten years? Imagine the change that Mary Z. Gray, who grew up above her family’s inherited funeral home at 301 East Capitol Street, has witnessed since her birth in 1919.

Mrs. Gray has written a book, published locally by the Overbeck History Press, about her youth on the Hill, and she’ll sign books in her former home (now the   Folger Shakespeare Library’s Haskell Center at 301 East Capitol Street) today at 1 p.m.  In the book, 301 East Capitol: Tales From the Heart of the Hill, Gray looks back ninety years at the neighborhood of her childhood, where her family of music makers and undertakers, homemakers and home breakers, had lived for five generations. She reminisces on her family’s maid tugging her away from Sherrill’s Bakery (who would not have been allowed to eat there), frightening a nun at St. Cecilia’s Elementary with stories about the family funeral parlor, and meeting Charles Lindbergh, just back from his solo flight to Paris.

Gray debuted as a reporter for The Washington Post in 1940 and later worked as a speech writer in the Kennedy-Johnson White House. She also worked as a freelancer for The New York Times and many other publications while raising a family in Silver Spring, where she lives today.

Watch this space for more on Mrs. Gray in the next week.