Judith Palache Gregory

1932 - 2017

JAFFREY – Judith Palache Gregory of Jaffrey, died peacefully on Friday, 20 January 2017, at Good Shepherd Nursing Center in Jaffrey, surrounded by close family.

Judith was born in Chicago, Illinois on 26 February, 1932. She attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School, Putney School and was a graduate of Radcliffe College (A.B. 1955) and the University of Virginia (M.Ed. 1962), She worked at the Catholic Worker (1959-1962), at the Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education (1957-1958), the Highlander Folk School (1958), and at the Harvard College Bureau of Study Counsel (1962-1973). In 1975 she moved to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where she helped found The Cheshire Pottery with two friends. During this time she studied permaculture with its inventor, Bill Mollison. With friends from the permaculture course she helped found Gap Mountain Permaculture Center, and started the Gap Mountain Land Trust. She also began caring for her aging parents, which she continued to do through her father's death in 1987, and ending with her mother's death in 1995. After a short interlude in California, she returned to live in her parents' house with her friend, Rosemary Poole. They kept a small flock of sheep and produced various wool products under the auspices of their business, French Palache Woolens.

Throughout her adult life Judith maintained contact with the Catholic Worker in New York City and elsewhere. She was editor of the Catholic Worker Paper from 1960-1970. She shared an apartment with Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, during her stay at the New York City House of Hospitality. They remained friends until Ms. Day's death in 1980.

Judith's primary love was writing and she kept voluminous journals detailing her life and thoughts. Conversation was her second love and she sought it out everywhere she went, making friends with a rich diversity of people. She was also a great lover of the natural world and a skilled bird-watcher. In addition to birds, she could name trees and ferns, constellations, clouds, and tell you the Latin name for most of the common garden flowers of New England. She hiked Monadnock and Gap Mountain extensively, including on snowshoes in winter, and yet one of her favorite quotes was from a Spanish proverb: How sweet it is to do nothing!

Judith is survived by her great friend in conversation, Rosemary Poole; her brother David Palache Gregory; her nieces Branwen Gregory and Cadigan Gregory; nephews Probyn, Rohan, Arofan and Taliesin; cousins Susan Gutterman, Alex Gutterman and Stephen Gutterman; and a host of friends from Jaffrey to India, and many places in between. She will be sorely missed.