GRAY, Patience (Jean Stanham) 1917–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born October 31, 1917, in Shackleford, Surrey, England; died March 10, 2005, in Spigolizzi, Italy. Author. Gray was best known as a food and garden writer who au-thored the bestselling Honey from Weed: Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades, and Apulia (1986). As a young woman, she attended Queen's College, Oxford, and the University of Bonn before completing a B.Sc. at the University of London in 1939. Her interest in journalism and art history was sparked while traveling through Europe before World War II, and she gave up her original plans to study German and economics to concentrate on journalism. Hired by the British Foreign Office, she was fired when World War II started because her superiors viewed her as a risk due to her many contacts with people in Europe. Around this time, she began an affair with a married man named Thomas Gray (she took his last name, though they were never married), bearing him two children, but they were separated after he was conscripted into the military. To earn an income, she worked as a secretary and then established a research agency; she also worked as a research assistant for H.F.K. Henrion. In 1958, having won a writing competition and published the popular book Plats du Jour (1957) with Primrose Boyd, Gray was given a job at the London Observer writing the woman's page. She was also a part-time editor for the magazine House & Garden. Leaving the Observer in 1962, Gray became a textile designer. The next love of her life, sculptor Norman Mommens, was also a married man, but he divorced and the couple (they would marry, but not until 1995) moved to Italy to share their love of the rustic countryside there. They settled on a farm in Spigolizzi, where they enjoyed a Spartan life, and Gray learned a great deal about gardening and cooking. She earned extra income by designing jewelry, while Mommens focused on his art. Her love of home-grown foods and her simple lifestyle led to the book Honey from Weed, for which she is best remembered. She also published the books Ring Doves and Snakes (1989) and Work, Adventures, Childhood, Dreams (1999); in addition, she edited A Catalan Cookery Book: A Collection of Impossible Recipes (1999) by I. Davis.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), March 14, 2005, p. 35.

Times (London, England), March 21, 2005, p. 50.