Beatrice Gray, of Hempstead Village, has died at 93

Beatrice Gray, a Village of Hempstead resident who helped desegregate area schools in the 1950s and was known for her baking, hat collection and devotion to her faith, died Friday.

She was 93. The cause was heart failure.

Gray was born in Aiken, S.C., on Oct. 24, 1916. She moved to Long Island at 13 with her family. She was the last survivor of a brood that included four sisters and five brothers.

"Tomorrow we will bury history, a chapter of our history," said the Rev. Dr. Sedgwick V. Easley of Union Baptist Church in Hempstead Monday. "We are going to miss her."

In 1933, Gray joined Union Baptist. Four years later, she married a fellow parishioner, Wallace Gray Sr., who would become a minister. The couple was among those in the community who worked to end segregation at the Franklin and Fulton elementary schools, family and friends said.

Wallace Gray IV said his grandmother was one of the first blacks to work on the assembly line at Republic Aviation in Bethpage. During World War II, Gray said his grandmother did a night shift building planes and cared for her four children during the day.

After retiring from Republic, he said, she worked as a nurses' aide at the now-defunct Hempstead General Hospital.

Gray's Southern roots found expression in her sense of hospitality, manners and baking, said family and friends.

"She had the best Southern pound cake you ever had," said Wallace Gray IV. "She had some secret recipe and would make it with whipped cream and orange juice. It would melt in your mouth."

She boasted a collection of about 300 hats, family said, one for every occasion.

"She had to have a hat on when she went out of the house and she had to be properly attired," said her daughter, Rosetta Dudley of Mastic.

As part of her church work, she and her husband, who died in 1998, traveled the world, said Wallace Gray IV. Their travels included several trips to Israel, he said, and to Egypt.

"My grandmother was sharp as a nail," he said. "She was very intelligent, very witty."

Easley, of Union Baptist, said Gray, who was a next-door neighbor, told him in her final days that she had done all she wished in life and "wanted for nothing."

"She exemplified the characteristics of a Godly woman, not only in word but in deed," he said. "And she leaves the world better because of it."

In addition to Rosetta Dudley and Wallace Gray IV of Hempstead, Gray is survived by another daughter, Sheila Dotson of Hempstead, three other grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Her funeral is at noon Tuesday at Union Baptist Church, 24 Rev. Clinton C. Boone Place, Hempstead.