Lucretia del Valle and her husband Ambassador Henry F. Grady, 1949.
Del Valle left acting for political work, first with her father, and then with her husband, but also in her own right.[8] Lucretia del Valle Grady was a California delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1928, 1936, 1940, and 1956. She was vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in 1937, when her husband Henry Grady became assistant Secretary of State,[9] and the couple moved to Washington D. C.[10]
In 1946, she christened the S. S. President Cleveland, a large passenger liner.[1] She was active as a diplomat's wife when Henry Grady became the first United States Ambassador to the newly independent India in 1947.[11] Henry Grady was ambassador to Greece in 1948, where Lucretia became the first woman named an honorary citizen of Athens;[12] and in 1950 the couple were in Iran, where Lucretia Grady promoted women's rights, including suffrage.[13]
Personal life and legacy
Lucretia del Valle married economist and shipping magnate Henry Francis Grady in 1917. They had four children;[14] their daughter Patricia Louise Grady married diplomat John Paton Davies, Jr. Lucretia Grady was widowed in 1957, and died in 1972, aged 79 years, in San Mateo, California, from a heart attack.[12][15]
Del Valle Avenue in Glendale, California is named for Lucretia del Valle Grady.[16] Some of her papers and photographs are in the Forster-del Valle Family Papers, at the University of California Irvine.[17]