Anne Morgan Gray

Anne Morgan Gray, psychotherapist, writer, and joyful spirit, passed peacefully and mercifully on April 13, 2024, after a very long and difficult illness. In her final years, Alzheimer’s Disease robbed Anne of her own memories, those of a life full of family, friends, love, warmth, compassion, and dogs, but memories of her will be cherished by her devoted husband, Stephen Kornblatt, her children, Carrie Gray, Sara Kornblatt, and Joshua Gray, as well as the countless people who found their way into her orbit, her home, or onto one of the overstuffed chairs of her home office in Bethesda, Maryland.

She was born Anne Morgan in Dermott, Arkansas on November 27, 1944, to Powell Overton Morgan and LaDelle Leek Morgan, and as little sister to brother Julian. She was born into unique and life-shaping circumstances. Her father, Powell, had lost a hand in a childhood accident, and as such had been disqualified for military service during WWII. An accountant by trade, he was instead pressed into service as an Administrator at Camp Rohwer, a Japanese Internment Camp in McGeehee, Arkansas, which is where Anne spent the first year of her life.

The experience greatly shook and disturbed Powell, the hate and ignorance which led to such a terrible tragedy as these camps. Anne, a Daddy’s girl from her first cry until her dying breath, carried this forward into her own life, which she dedicated to healing pain and building bridges. All were welcome in her home and in her heart.

She spent her childhood in various Southern locations including Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee (where she found and returned the lost wallet of Elvis Presley) before a Midwestern swing took the family to Des Moines, Iowa where Anne graduated from Roosevelt HS in 1962. College brought Anne to Stillwater, Oklahoma, and to Oklahoma State University, where she met her (first) husband, Bradford Gray. She graduated in the Spring of 1966 and she and Brad were married a few months later in Guymon, Oklahoma, before they moved on to New Haven, Connecticut.

Having a family was a source of great joy to Anne, and they welcomed their daughter Carrie Elizabeth into the world in New Haven in 1970, and son Joshua Bradford in Durham, North Carolina in 1973. Following a few brief stops in NYC and around suburban Maryland, they settled into a house on McKinley Street in Bethesda in 1977. After a lifetime of moving place to place, Anne was determined to finally lay down solid roots, and she called this house her “forever home.” While her first marriage didn’t last, coming to an end in 1980, her bond to the house was lasting, and she lived there for over 40 years, until finally forced from the home by her illness.

The 1980s saw Anne graduate from Catholic University with a Master of Social Work degree, and enter into emergency room social work. She was on duty in the ER at George Washington University when a wounded President Ronald Reagan was rushed in after his assassination attempt in 1981. She served as the liaison between the

Operating Room and the Reagan family, keeping them abreast of developments as they unfolded. She was also called into duty following the Air Florida crash in 1982, before her ER journey took her to the Washington Hospital Center, during some of the most violent years in Washington DC’s history. Anne’s ability to stay calm and focused in calamitous situations was astonishing, and it served her well in Emergency Rooms and as a Mom, where she always knew to work the problem first, and save the admonishments for later.

In true 1980s suburban Maryland fashion, Anne found love again in her daughter’s soccer coach, fellow parent Steve Kornblatt, and his daughter, Sara. After a courtship involving orange slices, traveling tournaments, and romantic Team America games at RFK stadium, Steve and Anne were married on June 24, 1984, in their much loved backyard surrounded by cherished friends and family. Their union was blessed by a rabbi and a priest and their wedding song was “The Rose.”

Seeking more time with her newly reconfigured family, as well a slower pace and deeper connection with clients, Anne transitioned into private psychotherapy sessions, building what became a thriving private practice in her home office. She relished the long term relationships she had with her clients, and truly saw it as her calling to help heal people’s pain and confusion. She was a gifted listener, with engaging brown eyes that would lock on whomever was speaking in a caring and non-judgmental gaze, her head tilted to one side, slowly nodding along. Her advice was insightful and firm yet always delivered gently, with a soft voice wrapped in a southern accent that never fully faded.

That southern accent was stronger in her writing. Anne spent almost two decades researching and crafting an unfinished yet epic Southern tale of her own family history, written from the posthumous perspective of her ancestor Lucinda McGraw. While an envisioned future where she could finish that story never came for Anne, she was honored when her short story “Daddy’s Loss” was published in the journal “Creative Nonfiction” in 1996, and was subsequently included in “Reading Critically, Writing Well,” an anthology for the teaching of memoir writing.

Anne treasured her membership in a Rappahannock writers’ group, “A Room Of Our Own”, where she and her friends shared their writings and critiqued each other’s works. Those warm and special gatherings occurred most Sundays over the course of 15 years, with she and the other writers often reading their works to the public in Rappahannock at an artistic event called Soup and Soul. Anne also spent over 20 years as a member of a therapy family group through the American Association of Psychotherapists, meeting at least twice a year for days of intense discussions on therapy and themselves. This group was a powerful emotional support group for Anne and the members became lifelong friends.

Anne’s forever home was an extension of her, a beautiful and ever-evolving embrace, with its own unique personality and spirit, filled to the brim with items curated not for monetary value or bragging rights but for their meaning and connection to the people she loved. Photos of parents and grandparents hung alongside beautiful prints by cherished old friends, on walls thick with layer after layer of different colored paints, remnants of Anne’s search for that perfect color for the room. Framed photos of her with her own family sat on shelves, tables, chests, and ledges. Handmade pottery, fine art, and beautiful antique furniture shared space with gnarled wood, discarded birds’ nests, strange glass bottles, and other items she collected on her long walks with a succession of beloved dogs whose ashes would themselves eventually find a place among the treasured items on display.

Anne’s aesthetic was perhaps best reflected in her home office - a one-room log cabin built on the back of a converted garage, sitting in the quiet serenity of her backyard. The cabin was a warm and comforting oasis, intended to slow down time from the rush of daily life, and open a space for real communication and healing, while also serving Anne’s determination that if she was to be spending 10-12 hours a day in a room, she wanted that room to be beautiful and peaceful.

After her children had grown and moved away, Anne’s log cabin office wasn’t enough to satisfy her love of country life, so she and Steve bought a small weekend cabin on a beautiful piece of land in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Anne loved walking through the woods with Steve and her dogs, watching sunsets from an ever-expanding deck, shopping at local crafts fairs, and making new friendships that she treasured as long as she was able. She relished every day she and Steve could get away to the peace and beauty of the cabin, and to people of that community.

The final loves of Anne’s life were her grandchildren, Simon and Cora, Carrie’s two kids with her wife, Lori Droste. Thankfully, Anne’s health and clarity lasted long enough for her to welcome them both into the world, and she was present at each of their births. She cherished every minute she had with them, holding them on her lap and in her arms, soothing them with that same soft voice that had soothed so many.

Anne’s forever home is gone, razed and replaced in 2023. No visible trace is left there of what she built - the family, the practice, the writing, the toil, the tears, the love. But flowers from her gardens are still alive, in the yards of neighbors and loved ones. Lessons learned, truths uncovered, and wounds healed in that cabin are still enriching the lives of former clients and their loved ones. The children and grandchildren who slept in those bedrooms still carry her memory, and approach every day of their lives with lessons taught to them by her, in that soft and sweet voice. The love she built in that house still lives on, every day.

Anne slipped away, peacefully and quietly, on a sunny spring Saturday, with her husband Steve at her side. “The Rose” was playing, and the chirps and hums of a beautiful day were coming in through her open window. Perhaps in that moment, in her mind, she was back on her wedding day, in the backyard brimming with flowers, birds and butterflies in the air, the sun shining on her beautiful smiling face, surrounded by her family and the people she loved.

Anne Morgan Gray is survived by her husband, Stephen Kornblatt, her children, Carrie Gray, Sara Kornblatt, and Joshua Gray, as well as Carrie’s wife Lori Droste, and their children Simon and Cora. Her memory will be cherished by all who knew her.

Her ashes will be interred by the family on Sunday, May 12, 2024, at 12:00 p.m. EDT, in Cumberland, Maryland, at Eastview Cemetery. We plan to stream the interment via Zoom (https://gibbsgiden.zoom.us/j/89944613822?pwd=SWhZQytHZUkrS3RWLzd0TjN5NDVMZz09)

Friends and family are invited to join a celebration of life memorial service, which will be held via Zoom on Sunday, June 2, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. (https://gibbsgiden.zoom.us/j/84503659078?pwd=c3BZOVY1MFZjV25GOUdkMGpmSk9GZz09)

If you wish to honor her memory, her family hopes you will consider a donation to an organization dedicated to Alzheimer’s research, or to a local group in your area dedicated to support for those stricken by Alzheimer’s.