Dr. Jean Gray Wright
Professor of French, 1930-1966
Dr. Jean Gray Wright early learned to appreciate and respect persons of other cultures, races, languages and nationalities. She grew up at Lincoln University, a predominantly African-American institution in Pennsylvania for male students, where her father was a teacher. It was from these childhood experiences that she learned to be accepting of others. Her father also taught her the complexities of higher math by teaching her algebra and trigonometry before she even learned simple arithmetic. But it was her mother who gave her the gift which became her life’s work. Her mother taught her French.
Jean Gray Wright was able to receive a collegiate education in a time when it was still rare for a woman to attend college. She graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1919 and, still pursuing, earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1922, during which time she also taught French, German and Latin at the Friends School in Wilmington, Delaware.
From 1923-24, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. She once reminisced that her lodging in Paris was in a 16th-century palace so drafty that when she and a roommate caught the measles, the physician prescribed fresh air but told them not to open the windows. She returned to the United States to teach English and French at a private school in Philadelphia. In 1928, she returned to Bryn Mawr to earn a doctorate.
Armed with degrees and experience, Dr. Wright arrived at Westhampton College in 1930. She was professor of French; and from 1947 until her retirement in 1966, she served as chairman of the Department of Modern Languages. Throughout her long and distinguished tenure, she was known by students, faculty, alumnae and community for her “dignified appearance and charming manners.” She was a favorite of the Westhampton students. A contemporary once summarized: “She has leadership status with a wide variety of students who voluntarily seek her understanding guidance and she has considerable influence with the faculty. She uses her really brilliant intellect and her incisive wit, tempered with kindness, to implement her goals which are both forward looking and for the benefit of the college.”
She valued books and considered a library as “central to the educational process.” She was among those who founded the Friends of the Boatwright Memorial Library and served as the organization’s chairperson. Many of us can remember the little lady who held herself erect, who possessed a commanding presence which belied her size, and always maintained her beautiful appearance and that magnificent white hair.
Elizabeth Broaddus Hardy, a French major at Westhampton in the early Sixties, remembered Miss Wright as “a liberated woman long before the term was fashionable” and added: “She had done her homework; she could hold her own with anyone in her field. This confidence, coupled with a quick mind, a delightful wit, and a self-assuredness, allowed her to set aside defensiveness. Such an example is priceless.”
Miss Wright died in 1988 at age 92 and her memorial services were conducted on the campus where she gave so much of her life.
These remarks were made by Dr. Fred Anderson upon Dr. Wright's addition to the University of Richmond Trustee's Honor Roll of Distinguished Faculty, Administrators and Staff, January 8, 2006.