Mrs. Carrie Robertson Grady
Former Supervisor
Affectionately known as Mother Grady

Mother Carrie R. Grady is a native of Winnsboro, South Carolina. She is the daughter of the late Arthur and Lucy Hall Robertson. She was a Cum Laude graduate from Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina with a B.S. Degree in Elementary Education. She earned the M. A. Degree in Education from New York University, New York. City. She also received her Certification in Middle School Language Arts, Reading, and Social Studies from the Citadel Military College, Charleston, South Carolina. After many years of educational excellence and service to youth, Mother Grady retired in 1992.

In the Seventh Episcopal District, Mother Grady served as Local YPD Director and organized the Young Adult Missionary Society at Morris Brown A.M. E. Church. She served, for a short time as Area Chairperson of the Greenville Area WMS. On the Episcopal Level, she served as Worship Leader as well as Special Missions Chairperson and First Vice President of the WMS. She served for nine years as President of the Palmetto Conference Branch WMS. She served as Area Consultant of the Edisto Area WMS where she organized and served as Advisor to the Edisto Area as well as The South Carolina Conference MSWAWO Plus PKS .

In the Sixteenth Episcopal District, Mother Grady served as Supervisor of the WMS and Children’s Work. She was credited with being the first Bishop’s wife to give physical incentives to the YPDers in that district through Bibles, calendars, trophies, caps, T-shirts and hand held musical instruments. She was instrumental in translating the WMS Constitution into Dutch, French and Spanish Languages, and having the WMS H-history of the district up dated and published.

During her tenure in the Ninth Episcopal District, she continued to encourage youth to be all that they could be and serve as leaders to their peers rather than being mere followers. She encouraged the members of the WMS to move beyond the walls of the church and become involved with Foster Care and Adoptions, Tutorial Programs, Church World Services and the Blanket Project, Health Awareness, Bread for the World, the NCNW, Voter Registration, become members of the RAF, catch the vision and support the building of a multi-functional, multi-generational facility on the campus of Daniel Payne College. She traveled with a delegation to the Sixteenth Episcopal District to share in their Planning Meeting.

While serving in the First Episcopal District she continued to stress the importance of WMS members being actively involved in the above mentioned organizations. She shared in leading a delegation to the Sixteenth District, carrying funds to help purchase property for the Z. L. Grady AME Church and share in the Celebration of their Ninth Anniversary. She also led the District in Outreach, and traveled to the Fourteenth Episcopal District where the WMS shipped a 40-foot container carrying clothing shoes, medical supplies, school supplies, pews, bicycles, robes for ministers and choir members to Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa as well as funds to buy food in September 2002 and again in January 2004.

Mother Grady served as a Registered Observer at five World Methodist Conferences: Honolulu, Hawaii; Nairobi, Kenya; Singapore, Malaysia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Brighton, England. She also served as a delegate to the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women in Loughboro, England. She is a Life Member of NCNW, the WMS and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. She has received numerous awards and citations including Teacher of the Year and was robed in the African Tradition in 1966 at the seat of the General Conference.

She is married to Bishop Zedekiah LaZett Grady and they are parents of four children; Rev. Z. L. Grady, II, Judith Felita Grady Davis (Melvin), Constance LuVira Grady-Woodberry ( Kenneth), and Rev. Carey Andrew Grady. They are the grandparents of three; Melvin Grady Davis, Cara Leigh Davis and Kendall Bynum Woodberry.