Woodrow Paul Gray
Woodrow Paul Gray was born on 5 December 1935, the only child of Robert Woodrow Gray, a Beaumont-born New Orleans man of nineteen, and Sable Mary Sherman of Marksville, 22. His Social Security application puts the birth at Marksville, his mother's home town in Avoyelles Parish; his obituary calls him a native of New Orleans, where his parents lived and where he grew up. In April 1950, aged 14, he was with them in New Orleans, his father driving a bus. The census taker wrote his name Robert P.
He married Lillian Bertrand and they had six children: Stuart Paul, David L., Benjamin J., Rachel L., Paula and Cheryl. He served overseas in the armed forces at some point, because the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 4445, were asked to his funeral. About 1988 he moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, and lived there fifteen years. He and Lillian were divorced in Palm Beach County on 6 July 1990. In Florida his companion was Earlene Roberts, and he worshipped with the Seventh Day Adventist church on Summit Boulevard.
In early 2003 he came home to Louisiana and lived at Terrytown, across the river from New Orleans, for nine months. He died on Saturday 15 November 2003, aged 67. The Times-Picayune called him "a lifelong lover of Jazz music" and asked that gifts go to the American Cancer Society. The funeral was at Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home in Metairie on the evening of 18 November, with the Seventh Day Adventists and VFW Post 4445 invited, and the burial was private, in the family crypt at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 3 where his parents had been placed in 1998 and 1999. His friends in Florida held a memorial service at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in West Palm Beach on 23 November. He left thirteen grandchildren.
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Cite: Heirology, "Woodrow Paul Gray (1935-2003)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/woodrow-paul-gray-1935-2003-875f18.