Quick Facts
Biography
Grace Marion Frick (January 12, 1903 – November 18, 1979) was a translator and researcher for her lifelong partner French author Marguerite Yourcenar. Grace Frick taught languages at US colleges and was the second academic dean to be appointed to Hartford Junior College.
Early life
Grace Marion Frick was born in Toledo, Ohio, on January 12, 1903. The family later moved to Kansas City, Missouri.
Frick graduated from Wellesley College in 1925 In 1927 she obtained a Master's degree always from Wellesley. She worked on a dissertation at Yale University, starting in 1937, the same year she met Yourcenar in Paris, and completed academic work at University of Kansas.
Career
Grace Frick is most remembered for being the translator from French into English of Memoirs of Hadrian, The Abyss and Coup de Grâce by Marguerite Yourcenar. Until Frick's death, Yourcenar allowed only her to translate her books.
She taught at Stephens Junior College for Women (now Stephens College), Columbia, Missouri, and at Barnard College, New York City. After Yourcenar's arrival, in 1940, Frick became the second academic dean of Hartford Junior College (later Hartford College for Women), until 1943, and they moved together at 549 Prospect Ave, West Hartford. Other than administrative duties, Frick also taught English. After Hartford, Frick taught at Connecticut College for Women (now Connecticut College), New London, Connecticut.
While in Hartford, Frick and Yourcenar were active in the arts community that originated around the Wadsworth Atheneum headed by Arthur Everett Austin, Jr..
Personal life
Grace Frick and Yourcenar lived together for forty years until Frick died of cancer on November 18, 1979.
Together they bought a house, "La Petite Plaisance", in 1943 in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island. They are both buried at Brookside Cemetery, Mount Desert, Maine. Alongside them there is Jerry Wilson, the last companion of Yourcenar, who died of AIDS in 1986.