Grace Berry was born in January 1879, according to the 1900 census. Her parents were members of two families that have a big presence in Vienna-area history, the Berrys and the Gunnells. Grace was the second youngest of nine children for her parents, J. Owen Berry and Mary Josephine Gunnell, according to the Fell, Moyer et al family tree on Ancestry.com. Her father had been a Confederate army officer in the Virginia theater and after the war served as the county surveyor, according to a history of the family firm. Among other things, J. Owen Berry was the surveyor for the establishment of Maple Avenue, according to Connie and Mayo Stuntz in their “This Was Vienna, Virginia.” Grace’s mother was the daughter of an earlier surveyor for the county. The county’s last official surveyor was one of her brothers, Joseph Berry, who also served on the Vienna town council.
In 1900, Grace visited friends in Alexandria before returning to her home, “delighted with her visit,” according to the Fairfax Herald. The next year, the Herald identified “Miss Gracie Berry” as the principal of the Clarke School and indicated that parents valued her work and hoped she would serve in the role for another term.
In 1903, Grace, 24, married Franklin Sherman, Jr. at Ash Grove, according to Virginia marriage records. Her husband was the son of the namesake for McLean’s Franklin Sherman Elementary School. Grace and her husband had apparently grown up near each other. The approximately 480-acre Berry property where Grace grew up was in the vicinity of today’s Woodside Estates subdivisions north of Lewinsville Road on its final stretch to the west and its intersection with Route 7. Franklin Sherman’s parents in turn owned the Ash Grove tract to the south, near today’s intersection of Route 7 and the Dulles Toll Road.
In 1905, Grace had the first of her five children. The family was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, judging from subsequent census information. Grace’s second child, Josephine, died within weeks of her first birthday. As of 1910, Grace and Franklin were living with their two young children in Raleigh, where Franklin worked as the North Carolina State Entomologist, according to census information and a synopsis of his career by one of his employers. In 1916, Grace Sherman of Raleigh was one of six of her mother’s heirs, according to Fairfax County Circuit Court documentation (B8:117). In 1921, in her early 40s, Grace had her fifth and final child, also named Grace. A nine-year gap separated the two youngest children. As of 1930, the family lived in Pickens, South Carolina. Franklin was an entomology professor at Clemson, according to the student newspaper.
Franklin died in 1947 in South Carolina, according to his death certificate. As of 1950, Grace lived with her daughter and son-in-law in Arlington, according to the census. Grace Berry Sherman died in 1952 in East Lansing, Michigan, according to her death certificate. East Lansing had been the residence of her oldest son as of 1941, according to Ancestry.com, suggesting that Grace was living with him or visiting him at the time of her death. She is buried with Franklin in Clemson, South Carolina, according to Findagrave.com.