Grace Reavy – A Pioneering Woman in Public Service and Community Leadership

CDA Cohoes. Assisting conductor and composer Professor John Carabella (who was at one time the organist for St. Bernard’s Church), Grace helped to organize the Albany Symphony Orchestra in 1931. She also served as President of the Siena College Opera Forum.
Grace’s most notable achievements were in the field of public service. On January 1, 1919, she was appointed by Cohoes Mayor Michael J. Foley to the post of City Comptroller. She was the first woman in New York State to be named to municipal public office. In 1921, she was reappointed by Mayor Daniel Cosgro, serving as Comptroller until she was appointed City Treasurer. She remained City Treasurer until July 1, 1928, when she became Commissioner of Elections in Albany. Only a month later, she was named Deputy Secretary of State by Edward J. Flynn, the Secretary of State under Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first term as Governor of New York. On April 15, 1937 Governor Herbert Lehman appointed Grace to the New York State Civil Service Commission; she was soon elected President of the Commission, holding this post until her retirement in July 1943. During her years as Deputy Secretary of State, Grace became friends with both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She worked with Eleanor in support of various causes, and campaigned for women’s rights and greater roles for women in public life.
Drawing on her own experiences pursuing a career in public service and bearing responsibility for a family business, Grace worked to advance opportunities for business and professional women, participating in activities of both the Cohoes and Albany Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. She was affiliated with Altrusa International, a service organization of professional women.
Grace Reavy died on February 20, 1959. She was buried from the Reavy family funeral home on Remsen Street, the business she had guided for more than 40 years. She left a legacy in her pioneering role as a woman in public service in Cohoes, Albany County, and New York State government, and through her community activism and organizational skills in promoting public health, the performing arts, and women’s rights.

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Thanks to John Reavy for providing the photograph of Grace Reavy.

Grace ReavyGrace Reavy was born on March 14, 1877. Her father, Frank C. Reavy, was an undertaker. Grace attended St. Bernard’s Academy, and after graduating in 1893 attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she developed her talent as a pianist. In 1900, the Reavy family moved to a stately Victorian home on Van Schaick Island. The house, where Grace resided for the remainder of her life, still stands on Ontario Street, near the bridge (called the Reavy Bridge) connecting Van Schaick and Simmons Islands.
When Frank died in 1905, Grace and her brother John took charge of their father’s business; Grace continued as President and Treasurer of the corporation following her brother’s death in 1919. In 1916, the business was located to 25 Mohawk Street and Henry Smart was hired to manage daily operation of the funeral business. He remained manager for many years, through the funeral home’s relocation to 121 Remsen St. in 1926 and to 282 Remsen St. in 1943.
Grace Reavy was a committed community activist, involved with many cultural and humanitarian organizations and activities over the years. She founded the Cohoes Women’s Municipal Welfare League, which established the city’s first playgrounds in 1913. She chaired a home service division of the American Red Cross from the First World War period (1917) until 1931. She worked with the Albany County Tuberculosis Association beginning in 1914, and with the Albany County chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, chairing the first fund-raising campaign for Cohoes for the latter organization, and heading numerous fund drives over the years. In 1952, she was named to the Board of Directors of the Albany County Board of Health.

She was an active communicant of St. Bernard’s Parish, involved in the St. Bernard’s Academy Alumni Association and the Court St. Bernard