The Life of Charity Jeanne Griest
CHARITY JEANNE GRIEST
October 18, 1918 ~ January 20, 2018
Charity Jeanne Griest, economist and long-time staffer with U.S. Savings and Loan League and the Social Security Administration, died of natural causes in Goodwin House, Alexandria, on Saturday, January 20, 2018. Since 2009, she had resided in Goodwin House, Alexandria, and for 43 years prior to that, in Washington, DC.
The daughter of Euclid and Marianna Griest, she was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but soon was removed to Chicago, where she was raised with a younger sister, Guinevere Griest, with whom she lived until Guinevere's death in September of 2016. Jeanne graduated in 1940 from the School of Communications at Northwestern University, and earned an economics degree in 1947 from the University of Chicago Business School. While Jeanne was teaching in England, Guinevere was studying on a Fulbright at Cambridge University, which enabled the two to travel on the Continent together.
Jeanne Griest was an intrepid traveler and avid gardener, as well as a long-time member of the Northwestern University and University of Chicago alumni associations, St. Alban's Church, the Army-Navy Club, and the Washington National Cathedral, where she served as chairman of the Washington Committee of the National Cathedral Association in 2000-2002, and as co-chairman the following year. She volunteered in Sayre House and was a loyal supporter of the Girls' Choir and Cathedral College.
A private committal service will be held at Ivy Hill Cemetery at a later date.