Grace Frick

Grace Marion Frick (January 12, 1903 – November 18, 1979) was an American translator and researcher for her lifelong partner, Belgian-French writer Marguerite Yourcenar.

While at Wellesley College, she worked as a graduate assistant in the English Department where she took on different academic duties to include coediting the first alumnae bulletin, titled the Chat Cat, for her graduating class of 1927. 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.

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. They fell madly in love with one another and, in 1939, Grace invited Marguerite to come live with her in the United States, allowing the latter to escape the imminent war in Europe.

Together they bought a house, "Petite Plaisance", in 1950 in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island. Frick and Yourcenar lived together for forty years until Frick died of cancer on November 18, 1979 at "Petite Plaisance".

They are both buried at Brookside Cemetery, Mount Desert, Maine. Alongside them is a memorial plaque for Jerry Wilson, the last companion of Yourcenar, who died of AIDS in 1986.