Obituary: Andrew Gray

December 16, 1978 - March 28, 2023

Andrew Gray, 44, of Beverly, passed away Tuesday, March 28, at home. Born in Portland, Maine, but always a Vermonter at heart, he was the son of Peter and the late Phyllis (Nelson) Gray. Andrew was the loving husband of Ethan Jacobs, with whom he shared 14 years of marriage, and he was the loving father of Martin (Marty) Jacobs Gray, age 6.

Andrew pursued a lifelong passion for science, earning a PhD in microbiology at Harvard University, completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco, and working as a development scientist at New England Biolabs in Ipswich, MA. In each of these places he was a beloved coworker and a supportive mentor, and his lab-mates became some of his closest friends. They appreciated his genuine kindness, scientific curiosity, endless creativity, and boundless sense of humor.

Andrew also loved board games, and one of his favorite ways to spend an evening was to gather with friends to play strategy games (the nerdier, the better) into the early hours of the morning. He relished the complexity, challenge, and the competition of games, and most importantly he liked the excuse to hang out with the people he loved (and hopefully beat them handily). Wherever life took him, from Boston, to the Bay Area, to the North Shore, or on trips back to Vermont, he made fast friends over board games.

Andrew also loved the outdoors, whether hiking through Vermont as a teenager on his way to earning his Eagle Scout rank or as an adult hiking in Yosemite, Big Sur, or the hiking trails around Beverly. He pushed himself to his limits riding twice in the Pan Mass Challenge to raise money for Dana Farber Cancer Institute in memory of his mother, Phyllis, and as part of Team Haggis, riding for the Zaff Family Fund in honor of his cousin-in-law, Esther Potter.

Andrew was a loving husband. He and Ethan met in Boston in 2004, married in Cape Cod in 2008, and moved across the country to Berkeley and then San Francisco in 2009 for Andrew's post-doc and Ethan's graduate school. In 2016 they moved back east, first to Salem and then to their first house in Beverly. Andrew loved having a home where he could walk to the beach or to pick up tasty burritos downtown, or trek across the water to Salem Willows and play arcade games and eat ice cream.

The most important change in Andrew's life came in 2017, when he and Ethan became parents to Marty. Andrew was a wonderful father, and Andrew's childlike spirit made him and Marty best buddies. He was always game to place basketball, or bounce on the trampoline, or build complex Lego projects, or collaborate on drawings of monster trucks and motorcycles, or strap on rain boots during a downpour and play puddle soccer. Despite having almost no knowledge of soccer, Andrew gladly became one of the assistant coaches for Marty's soccer team and motivated the kids with his giddy enthusiasm and booming voice.

Andrew loved board games, sci-fi movies and TV shows, country music, classical music, RuPaul's drag race, and maple creemees in the summer in Vermont. He memorized the Scrabble 2-letter word list, but he'd let you look up words to make the game a fairer fight. He loved terrible puns and dad jokes and dirty jokes, and he made a mean maple-tini. He was kind, and gentle, and witty, and compassionate, and he created a sense of family and community wherever he went.

Andrew is survived by his husband, son, and father; sister, Kristen Gray Jafflin; nephew, Lucas Jafflin; niece, Lily Jafflin; stepmother, Pamela Blake; and grandfather, Donald Gray.

Contributions may be made in Andrew's memory to the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.