Peter H. Gray ’60

An Indianapolis native, Peter graduated from Carmel High School there on his way to Princeton. Here, he majored in religion and literature, joined Terrace, was active in the St. Paul’s Society, and served in Navy ROTC. Upon graduating, he served three years in the Navy aboard the carrier USS Randolph, chasing off a Russian submarine during the Cuba Missile Crisis and recovering several of the early astronauts in the Atlantic.

Determined on a life in faith and human service, Peter earned a Master of Divinity in 1966 and served several Episcopal parishes in Michigan, where he helped found a school for troubled teenagers and added social service and related public services to his ministry. Peter moved to Northern Virginia in 1976 to serve as associate rector at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, McLean, where he continued these three callings, retiring formally in 2004, but remaining active until his death June 3, 2022.

Peter contributed to a 2013 PAW article, “Hidden Lives,” that examined the difficult gay experience here in the ’50s and ’60s, and long after. At St. Thomas he added support for gay people to his other ministries. Peter was able to acknowledge his situation publicly upon his retirement. He is survived by his longtime partner and husband since 2019, Rick Michaelson, to whom we send our sympathy.