- Date Of Death: April 6, 2009
- State: New Jersey
Mary Theresa Nuttall Graves of Willingboro, New Jersey, passed away April 6, 2009, at the Genesis ElderCare Center in Voorhees following a brief illness. Mary was born August 10, 1922, in Washington, DC to John J. Nuttall and Letitia Copple Nuttall. The family lived briefly in Northfield, NJ, near Mary’s grandmother in Pleasantville. Later, the family owned a home for many years in the St. Clement’s parish neighborhood of Southwest Philadelphia. Through the intercession and generosity of the Sisters of St. Francis, Mary attended St. Elizabeth’s Academy in Allegheny, New York. She graduated in 1939, the youngest in her class of six girls. In the early 1940s, Miss Nuttall began a rewarding and distinguished career as a Confidential Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Labor-Management Relations at the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania.
She retired in 1959. In 1947, Mary Nuttall married Joseph Anthony Graves, a member of the Holy Angels parish in the Oak Lane section of Philadelphia. The couple first met at the Willow Grove amusement park before the U.S. entered World War II. Mr. Graves earned a Bronze Star while serving in the Army under General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific theater. They corresponded extensively during their separation. Their wedding was held February 8, 1947 in St. Clement’s Church.
The young couple lived in Center City during the years Mr. Graves earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Temple University in Philadelphia. From 1950 to 1956 the family lived in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, before buying their first home in Bristol Township in Bucks County in 1956, where they became members of the St. Michael the Archangel parish. In 1963, the family moved to a new home in the Hawthorne Park section of Willingboro, in Burlington County, NJ and became members of Corpus Christi parish. Mary and Joe Graves were happily married for 57 years before his death in 2000. In 1997, their children organized a 50th Anniversary celebration. This gala affair, with over seventy guests attending, was held at the Officers’ Club at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. Mary Graves and her husband loved to travel. They explored Quebec, Canada, and the eastern U.S. from Maine to Florida on many automobile vacations. Their journeys also took them to New Orleans and Las Vegas. In 1958, Mary and members of the Bell System Pioneers, an employee social group, flew to Europe on a TWA Constellation and toured Paris, France; Venice and Florence, Italy; and Brussels, Belgium, site of that year’s World’s Fair. Mary was always an avid follower of Philadelphia professional sports teams, especially the Seventy-Sixers during the Allen Iverson years. She was an enthusiastic viewer of televised golf tournaments, exceedingly impressed with the phenomenal Tiger Woods.
She was also a subscriber for many recent seasons at the Bristol Riverside Theater for dramatic and musical productions. But no sport or other form of entertainment could command the passion and dedication that Mary Graves felt for opera, and especially for sopranos. She owns an extensive collection of opera recordings and librettos. She held Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa and René©e Fleming in the highest regard. Mary Graves was a voracious reader and a life-long learner. During the 1950s she completed courses at Villanova University. Throughout her life she read at least one entire newspaper each day; recently, she consumed the online version of several. For the last several years of her life Mary was regularly enrolled in literature classes at Bucks County Community College. Around 1960, Mary and her husband were among the ten founding and charter members of the Catholic Lay Council of Bucks County. She devoted countless happy endless hours to the interests, activities and fellowship of that organization for the rest of her life.
She drew much joy and fulfillment from her association with the Council. In 2007, on the occasion of her 85th birthday, the CLC presented Mary with the coveted Gilbert Keith Chesterton Award, an honor bestowed by the Council rarely in the nearly-sixty years of its existence. It was one of the proudest moments of her life. Mary’s survivors include her son, Joseph Anthony Graves, Jr., and his wife Irene Wolf Graves of Somerdale, NJ; and her daughter Celeste Graves Benson and her husband Captain Perry S. Benson, USN (Ret.) of Panama City, FL. Mary is also survived by her brother, John J. Nuttall, Jr. and his wife Eileen of Dover, DE; and by her sisters Margaret Nuttall Thiel of Cape Coral, FL, and Jane Nuttall Tucker of Downingtown, PA. She is also survived by brothers-in-law John F. Flynn of Atlantic City, and William J. Graves of Seaville, NJ. In addition, Grammom Mary is survived by grandsons Sebastian John-David Graves of San Francisco, CA; Evan Douglas Graves of Mount Royal, NJ; and Douglas Stuart Benson of Panama City. Also, Aunt Mary is survived by numerous nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Finally, Mary is remembered by her dearest friends â” the surviving members of the Catholic Lay Council of Bucks County.
