Audrey Graham

Audrey Clarissa Graham died peacefully and gracefully on January 29, 2026, at the end of a remarkable 106-year life. She was born in Brooklyn, NY, on October 8, 1919, just three months after Congress passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, a time when farmers still delivered milk in horsedrawn carriages in the city. Imagine the changes she saw during her long life!

The daughter of Clarissa Hose and Emanuel Willis Eurich, she was a treasured only child, and the first member of the family to graduate from college. At Brooklyn College she studied with Abraham Maslow and other international thinkers. She married David Graham, her high school sweetheart, during WWII, and lived a life full of curiosity, learning, adventure, hard work and ambition. After a brief career in publishing, she focused on music and became an organist and beloved piano teacher in Ossining and Briarcliff Manor, NY, where she and David lived beginning in 1955. David and Audrey raised three daughters and were members of All Saints Church until their deaths, where they sang in the choir and ran the highly successful annual rummage sale. They also were decades-long members of the Ossining Choral Society where she served as President of the Board.

Audrey had limitless energy. In addition to raising the family, teaching, and managing the household, she especially loved antiquing at estate sales and buying the most beautiful things, despite cracks and stains, at the lowest prices. She loved food and cooking, hiking and walking, bird watching, visiting museums, and travelling to Europe, Africa, Mexico and the Caribbean. She was a member of one of the oldest book clubs in the country, and was an avid reader of literature, history, archeology, religion, philosophy, and art history. The back of every painting and print she owned was annotated with her research notes on the work and the artist. Having experienced need and difficulty in her childhood, she was always an advocate for the underdog and was a devoted volunteer at Hudson Link where she corresponded with incarcerated young people and encouraged them to advance their education.

After leaving her home at the age of 99, Audrey lived at Atria in Briarcliff for a few years and then at the Center for Living and Rehabilitation in Bennington, Vermont, near two of her daughters, where she was lucky to be cared for by highly attentive and deeply compassionate staff.

Audrey is survived by her daughters Christine Graham (Burlington and North Bennington), Lesley McFadden (N. Bennington) and Jennifer Dietrich (Pearl River, NY), eight grandchildren and six great-grand-daughters. She was predeceased by her parents and by her husband of 70 years, David. She was smart and lucky enough to have deep friendships with people of all ages, so many of the younger ones survive to miss her.

Gifts in memory of Audrey may be sent to All Saints Church, Scarborough Rd, Briarcliff Manor, NY (www.allsaintsbriarcliff.org) or Hudson Link (www.hudsonlink.org). The family will be arranging a memorial service in the spring.