Robert Woodrow Gray
Robert Woodrow Gray was born on 22 October 1916 at Beaumont, Texas, the son of Samuel Houston Gray and Laura Denby, who went by Hettie. His father was a Newton County, Texas man born about 1882, and in January 1920 the family was living in Sabine County, Texas, on the Louisiana line: Samuel, 37, Laura, 31, and four children, Bessie Inez, 14, Mildred, 10, Robert, 4, and Doris, 2. A fifth child, Reid, was born in Louisiana about 1920, so the move to New Orleans came soon after.
By 1930 the family was in New Orleans. The census that year lists Samuel H. Gray, 48, as widowed, with Inez, 25, Mildred, 21, Woodrow, 13, Doris, 12, and Reid, 10. The boy was called Woodrow, not Robert, and he kept both names all his life: Robert Woodrow on his voter registrations and his draft card, Woodrow to the family. His mother is not in that household, and his father was recorded as a widower again in 1950; when she died has not been found.
About 1934 or 1935 he married Sable Mary Sherman, a Marksville girl from Avoyelles Parish, seventeen months older than him. Their son Woodrow Paul was born on 5 December 1935, by his Social Security application at Marksville, his mother's home town. In April 1940 Robert, 22, and Sable, 26, were boarding at 1608 Moss Street, New Orleans, in the household of William Booksh, 23, whose wife Narcille was Sable's sister. Sable's younger sister Georgette Sherman, 19, was in the house too, with the Booksh children Frances, 4, and Cecille, six months. The census calls him Woodrow Gray, brother-in-law.
He registered to vote in Orleans Parish on 13 November 1939, giving his birthplace as Beaumont, and again on 25 August 1941. He registered for the draft at New Orleans in the first registration of 1940 to 1945. In April 1950 he was a bus operator in New Orleans, 33, with Sable, 37, and their son, 14.
He died on 26 August 1998, living at Kenner in Jefferson Parish, aged 81, and was buried on 29 August in the Resurrection Mausoleum at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 3 in New Orleans, in the Sorrowful Mother Alcove, crypt D 3 and 4. Sable followed him a year later and shares the plaque: "ROBERT W. GRAY OCT. 22, 1916 AUG. 26, 1998. SABLE S. GRAY FEB. 16, 1913 SEPT. 7, 1999." Their son Woodrow Paul was placed in the same crypt in 2003.
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Cite: Heirology, "Robert Woodrow Gray (1916-1998)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/robert-woodrow-gray-1916-1998-62cf50.