Grant, Cornelia Paine Our beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend, Cornelia Paine Grant, age 86 of Weston, Massachusetts, passed on December 10, 2020, surrounded by her family and husband of 67 years.
Mary “Cornelia” Paine Grant was born on January 5th, 1934 in Redlands, California. Her father, Robert Treat Paine, was a third generation citrus rancher of the famed Paine family of Redlands; her mother, Mary Elizabeth Rabe was an accomplished pianist who trained in Germany.
Cornelia graduated from Redlands High School in 1951. After graduation, she travelled to Europe for the summer, then to Boston to attend Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School, at the direction of her father in order to get her into the work force, and find a Harvard man!
During her first fall semester, Cornelia was riding in a 1947 Ford with friends on Beacon Hill. They stopped on Mt. Auburn Street, as the driver had spotted his friend Halcott Green Grant of Weston, and Harvard College (1948). He told him to hop in, and in the back seat was Cornelia. Within a year, they were married on May 16th, 1953. They moved throughout the Boston suburbs before settling in Weston. Over the next 50 years they raised their five children, who were all teenagers in the late 1960s and 70s; not an easy feat!
Cornelia spent most of her professional career working for IBM. She retired in 1986, and became committed to the fulfillment of the Weston community where she was the President of the Weston Garden Club, President of the Ladies Committee of Wayside Inn, and an active member of the First Parish Church.
Cornelia and her husband returned to Redlands in 1999, buying her family homestead in 2000 becoming the fourth generation of the Paine family to inhabit the Paine Family Citrus Ranch. Within the community and family, her gardens were beloved and she was an active member of the Redlands Horticulture & Improvement Society. Her skill for décor, landscaping, and entertaining lives in the legacy of the annual Redlands ‘Dinner in the Grove’ put on by the Family Service Association of Redlands. Cornelia and Hal hosted this wonderful charity event for the first four years and it continues to this day.
They came back to Weston in 2011 to live at Stonegate Gardens Condominiums. She, of course, had to install a patio and some beautiful gardens that may, or may not have been approved by the association. However, all would appreciate the beauty she brought to the neighborhood.
Cornelia and Hal spent most of their later years traveling the world - a trip to Tanzania brought them to a dinner at dusk under the stars in the African savannah. The Arts were a very important part of their lives. Together they frequented museums, theatre, concerts, and of course the Symphony wherever they were. Most of all she was devoted to the lives of her children and twenty grandchildren, always in attendance for weddings, graduations, births, anniversaries and organizing many family reunion celebrations.
Cornelia is survived by her husband Halcott Grant; sons Halcott Jr. (Catherine Zimmerman) of Weston, MA; William (Anne Des Rosier) of Helena, MT; Robert (Karen Gallagher) of Weston; Charles (Deborah Buchanan) of Portland OR; her daughter, Alexandra (Michael Menolascino) of Wilson WY, her brother Tom Paine of Waldport, OR, and nineteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Cornelia is preceded in death by her mother, Mary Elizabeth Rabe, her father, Robert Treat Paine, and her granddaughter, Maize.
Memorial service will be announced at a later date. Expressions of sympathy may be made in Cornelia’s memory to the First Parish Church in Weston, 349 Boston Post Road, Weston, MA 02493.