Spencer Y. Grey ’51

Spencer Y. Grey ’51, for 20 years a secondary school teacher and later head of his family’s clothing store on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, died on April 24 in Chatham, Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife, Ann, three children, and five grandchildren. Dartmouth family included his father, Percy, class of 1919; father-in-law Richard Foote, class of 1914; and son Thomas ’79. As an undergraduate Spencer was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa and Green Key and served as business manager of The Dartmouth. He earned an M.A. in English at Columbia University in 1955 following two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He taught English and was chair of the English department, as well as drama director, at Loomis-Chaffee School until 1975. During those years he and Ann regularly helped during the summer months to run the Sail Loft, a store started by his parents in the 1940s. In 1975 Spencer and his family moved to Chatham to run the store full-time. Spencer served as president or chairman for 11 years of the Chatham Historical Society and was heavily involved with the renovation and considerable expansion of the society’s premises. Between 2000 and 2012 he collaborated on three book collections chronicling and illustrating the history of Chatham. He initiated a widely read column in The Cape Cod Chronicle that featured stories from 300 years of Cape Cod history.