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Carl Raymond Gray Sr (1889 - 1955)

Gen. Carl Raymond Gray Sr
Born in Wichita, Sedgwick Co., KSmap
Husband of — married 16 Oct 1911 in St. Louis, St. Louis Co., MOmap
Died at age 66 in St. Paul, Ramsey Co., MNmap
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Profile last modified | Created 31 Jul 2014
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Biography

Veteran, WW I & WW II, U S Army, recipient of nation's second highest military award.

Mayflower descendant of both his paternal grandparents with paternal grandfather a Confederate officer and his 100% German blood mother's father, with his two brothers, in Union army during Civil War, and at least two ancestors Revolutiionary war veterans Colonel Heinrich Staring (1730-1808) and Rev Robert Gray (1761-1822).

Member #52681 to Sons of the American Revolution

h/o Gladys Evans Beach.

Birth: 1st of three known children in Wichita, Sedgwick county, Kansas.

VIEW his life.

View his ancestry.

July 1890 parents removed from his birth town of Wichita to Carthage, Jasper county, Missouri, their third longest homestead, where he had some cousins and would in three more years, his uncle "Will" Flora, living first in the Harrington House at northeast corner of the courthouse square. Then come 25 March 1896 its back to Wichita then to Neodesha, Wilson county, Kansas before September 1898 removing back to Carthage, Missouri until suitable housing was found in Monett, formerly Plymouth, Barry county, Missouri.

Later in life his often uttered comment was: I moved 42 times during first fifty years!

When Dr W W Flora (wife Maude, seven months pregant with my mother) lived on Howard avenue, Carthage, Jasper county, Missouri(ah), June 14, 1898, nine y/o nephew Carl R Gray, Jr, who lived in Carthage July 1890- March 1896, visited them, as usual wanted some cherries.

"Little Carl Gray, the son of C. R. Gray, division superintendent of the Frisco was painfully hurt yesterday by falling from a cherry tree at the home of his uncle, Dr. W. W. Flora on Howard Ave. Mrs. C. R. Gray [sister, Harriette Flora] was visiting there with her son, and was going over to Monett with Mr. Gray this morning to see about getting a house to live in after the first of next month. Mr. Gray was telegraphed at Neodesha. He arrived this morning.

"Little Carl was up in the tree hunting cherries, and when he fell he struck plump on his stomach. The agony occasioned was frightful and Drs. Thomas and Post were summoned. The injury done was to the stomach and chest, and the posterior lobe of the brain seemed to be inflamed this morning. Dr. Thomas said this morning that the boy was not seriously hurt." ~ from The Carthage Press.

Census: 1900, age 11 Monett, Barry County, Missouri with parents, paternal aunt and new born brother, next door to father's newest "right hand bower", Burt Blair & wife.

30 OCT 1900 removed to 3939 Belle place, Saint Louis, Missouri where his second and last brother was born in 1901, then found in Springfield, Greene county, Missouri JUN 1903 on Benton avenue attending high school till father was again promoted and returned to Saint Louis where around 1906 built what may (?) have been their only house at 52 Westmoreland avenue.

Carl attended Western Military Academy, Alton, Madison county, Illinois where he was captain of the football team and graduated as valdictorian in Class of 1907.

Census: 1910, age 21 Saint Louis, Missuri with parents, two younger brothers & four servents at 52 Westmoreland avenue.

Attending and graduating from University of Illinois before working in Saint Louis for "Frisco" in 1911, then to Portland, Multnomah county, Oregon where daugther Gladys was born 1912, then son, Carl, III born back in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1914, found back in Springfield, Missouri again as assistant accountant for "Frisco", 1914-1016, then Baltimore, Maryland in the Tuscony Apartments 1917 to 1918 for WW I

WW I: Captain QMC, Major QMC 5-21-18, Lt Col QMC 8-28-18, HQ SE Dept 5-8-17, GenSup Dep Atlanta 1-17-18, QM Dep 5 Zone 7-14-18,Pur Stor & Traf Off Washington D C 2-14-19 Hon Disch 4-14-19.

Census: 1920, age 30 Kansas City, Jackson county, Missouri with wife & two children at 3605 Gillam road, manager mail order house (?).

Census: 1930, age 40 Saint Paul, Ramsey county, Minnesota with wife & two children at 772 Linwood avenue, a railroad excutive.

Served as 1939 King Boreas V at St Paul, Minnesota's Ice Carnival.

Census: 1940, age 50 Saint Paul, Ramsey county, Minnesota with wife , an officer of a steam railroad, same location in 1935.

WW II, head of military railroads in Africa and Europe, ---- awarded second higest military medal, after the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross (see "flower") for his outstanding service in Italy and France also Legion of Merit (as did younger brother "Howdie"), but his with oak leaf cluster: Bronze Star Medal: Army Commendation Medal, (www.americal.org/awards/achv-svc.htm) : Italian War Cross for Merit: Order Crown of Italy: Knight Comdr. British Empire: Officer Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre with 2 palms(France): Order of Belgium, followed Missourian, 5-star General-of-the-Army, Omar N Bradley as "Administrator of Veteran Affairs" 1948-1953, for Harry Truman (Time Magazine, 01 December 1947) and is found with his youngest brother, Dr Howard "Howie" Kramer Gray (1901MO-1955MN) in Volumes 27 & 29 of Who's Who in America.

"....but the President [Truman] did have a surprise up his sleeve in his choice of a successor for Bradley. The man he named to head the Veterans Administration was Carl R. Gray Jr., 58, hearty, joke-loving vice president of the Chicago & North Western Railway Co. Railroader Gray, whose late father was president of the Union Pacific, is a crack organizer who, as a red-tape-hating general in World War II, won the high respect of both Eisenhower and Omar Bradley for his ability to push rail lines into one side of a European town almost before German forces could retreat out the other."

~ Source: Time magazine article

Carl also rode in the captured railway car, once belonging to Adolph Hitler, from Paris to Brussels with Margaret Elizabeth Owen, daughter of his security officer, Col Fredreick H Owen, jr of Augusta, Maine.

A new railroad with a nationally-publicized locomotive named " Tweetsie " has come to the famed Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Formally known as the Shenandoah Central Railroad, the new road won't compete with the Southern, which provides freight service into and out of the Valley-nor with any other railroad for that matter. The new road's entire trackage (1 mile) lies on a beautiful rolling farm six miles east of Harrisonburg, Va.

On May 29, people arrived from hundreds of miles around to witness the official dedication of the "Tweetsie Route, " as the little narrow-gauge Railroad is affectionately called. (Narrow-gauge track measures 3-ft. between rails as compared to the standard' gauge of 4-ft., 8-in.) The ceremony was complete with band music, congratulatory messages from officials of the Southern and other neighboring railroads, and even the driving of a "golden " spike by a national figure, Maj. Gen. Carl R. Gray, Jr., Veterans Administrator of Washington, D.,C., and wartime head of the Military Railway Service in 'Europe.

Author: "Railroading in Eighteen Countries: the story of American railroad men in the Military Railroad Service 1862-1953"

Death: from cancer in hospital at Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota

From Time Magazine, Monday, December 12, 1955: "Died. Major General (ret.) Carl R. Gray, 66, onetime (1947-53) Veterans Administration chief, commander of allied railways in the European [& African] theater in World War II, vice president of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway (1946-48); of a circulatory ailment; in St. Paul, Minn."

Father: Colonel Carl Raymond Gray b: 28 SEP 1867 Princeton, Dallas county, Arkansas. Mother: Harriette Amanda "Hattie" Flora b: 17 SEP 1869 in (Osage Indian Ceded Territory) Verdirgris, now Liberty township, Montgomery, formerly Wilson County, Kansas (born as 1st white chld withn county)

Marriage: Gladys Evans Beach b: 3 APR 1889 in Saint Louis City, Missouri Married: 16 OCT 1911 in Saint Louis, Saint Louis County, Missouri

Known Children

Gladys Ethel Gray b: 25 SEP 1912 in Portland, Multnomah county, Oregon

Carl Raymond Gray b: 6 JAN 1914 in Saint Louis City, Missouri

Revised: 04-19-2014

Prepared in part by Bill Boggess.

Sources





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Rejected matches › Raymond Gray (1888-1955)