Father Graham attended St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, and was ordained in Springfield, Massachusetts on May 12, 1985.
Between the summer of 1989 and the end of 1990, the Respite took occupancy of a compound of former mansions of old Waterbury's Chase family, known as Rose Hill, and other proximate buildings that had previously been medical offices, on Prospect and Grove Streets in Waterbury, Connecticut.