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Local figure

Elizabeth Gray Vining

Elizabeth Gray Vining, known in Chapel Hill as Betty Gray, worked on the University library staff in the 1920s and wrote several books here as Elizabeth Janet Gray. She married Morgan Vining of the University Extension division in Chapel Hill, and later became tutor to Japan's Crown Prince Akihito.

Source: DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 29, 1947, page 4

1902–1999 as the Library of Congress records it · Library of Congress authority record ↗

1 indexed work is connected with this person.

Elizabeth Gray Vining, photograph, 1949
Elizabeth Gray Vining, photograph, 1949

Indexed works

Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.

Vining, Elizabeth Gray (Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical file)

Elizabeth Gray Vining, the author who tutored Japan's Crown Prince Akihito after the Second World War, is the subject of photocopied newspaper articles and notes. Chapel Hill Historical Society Vertical File Collection, Individuals and Families series, box 8. Undated.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 5 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Elizabeth Janet Gray joins the UNC library staff Elizabeth Janet Gray, later Elizabeth Gray Vining, came to Chapel Hill in 1926 as an assistant cataloger at the University library, after library school at Drexel. Friends in town knew her as Betty Gray.Search the index · Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections (Philadelphia Area Archives): Elizabeth Gray Vining papers
  2. UNC library worker Elizabeth Janet Gray sells her first book Gray, a member of the University library staff, signed a contract with Doubleday, Page & Co. for Meredith's Ann, a story for girls set in the New Hampshire mountains. She went on to write several more books while living in Chapel Hill.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, February 4, 1927, page 1
  3. Elizabeth Janet Gray marries Morgan Vining of the University Extension division Gray married Morgan Fisher Vining, associate director of the University's Extension division, in Chapel Hill. The couple moved to New York in 1932, and he was killed in an automobile accident in 1933.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 29, 1947, page 4
  4. Elizabeth Janet Gray publishes Jane Hope, a novel set in Chapel Hill Viking Press issued Jane Hope, a novel for young readers set in Chapel Hill, whose heroine comes from Philadelphia to live with her grandparents. The Chapel Hill Weekly noted that the author had absorbed the village's history, with a chapter on the Buchanan commencement.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 29, 1933, page 1
  5. Elizabeth Janet Gray wins the Newbery Medal Gray received the 1943 John Newbery Medal for Adam of the Road, a story of 13th-century England, a decade after she left Chapel Hill. She was then living in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 29, 1947, page 4

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.

  • UNC Libraries University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 2 events here

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Search further

The index lists works with an Orange County connection. To find everything else about Elizabeth Gray Vining, search these catalogs.

Books about Elizabeth Gray Vining

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Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Searched with the Library of Congress heading Vining, Elizabeth Gray, 1902-1999, so the results are about this person and not others with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.

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Research sources

Additional research sources

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Picture: Elizabeth Gray Vining, photograph, 1949. Public domain. Asahi Shimbun photograph; via Wikimedia Commons

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