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GREENWICH, Conn. – Joan Kingman Grayson of Greenwich died Nov. 28 at Greenwich Woods Health Care Center, surrounded by family. She was 94.
She was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., to Irving and Maude Sackett Deming Walz. She graduated from Greenwich High School in 1936 and the Greenwich Hospital School of Nursing as a registered nurse in 1942.
Grayson served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in the South Pacific Theater during World War II from 1943-44. After the war, she became a surveyor for the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.
She was the first executive director of a hospice in Sarasota, Fla., and the executive director of Happiness House Rehab Center in Sarasota, where she lived for 25 years. Grayson also was an award-winning photographer.
She is survived by a daughter, Deidra "Dee" Saffery, of Stamford; a granddaughter; a niece and two nephews also survive her. She was predeceased by her stepfather, Edgar A. Walz Jr.; two brothers, Robert Lytle Deming and Edgar A. Walz III; a sister, Natalie Walz Fullerton; a sister-in-law, Peggy Beecher; and a niece, Lydia Walz.
There will be a memorial service at 11 a.m. Dec. 15 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Riverside. There will be a private burial service at the First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich. Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Stamford Hospital Pastoral Care Fund, 30 Shelburne Road, Stamford, CT 06902.
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