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Compiled by John H. Wheeler Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen Biography Page 200 - 201 |
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WILLIAM H. GRAY
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It is not ease but effort that makes the man. There is perhaps no station in life where difficulties do not have to be encountered and obstacles overcome. Every vocation has in it certain elements or situations which might be characterized as disagreeable but which are counter-balanced, to some extent at least, by compensatory features. The subject of this sketch, William H. Gray, of section 28, Liberty township, has for years pursued two vocations. He is a tiller of the soil and the local minister in the church of the Disciples of Christ. He is as much at home in the pulpit, in the midst of the members of his flock, as he is in the fields amid his growing crop. He has, doubtless, often realized in his dual labors the truth of the assertion that it is not ease but effort that makes the man. William H. Gray was born on his father's farm in Morgan county, Indiana, August 27, 1847, and is the son of David W. and Elizabeth (McCampbell) Gray. Both parents died in Morgan county, Indiana, the father at the age of seventy-six years. They were the parents of thirteen children, the subject being one of the younger members of the family. He was reared at home and received a common school education in the schools of the county of his birth. While attending school he aided in the farm work and later engaged in it as his regular vocation. In Tipton county, Indiana, October 20. 1870, William H. Gray was united in marriage to Miss Martha R. Wilcox, a native of Indiana, born in Tipton county, April 24 1853. She was a young lady noted for her religious fervor and Christian character. Her father was Uriah Wilcox, a veteran of the Civil war, while her mother's maiden name was Emaline Roode. Of a family of seven children Mrs. Gray was the second. After marriage the subject and his wife established themselves in a home in Morgan county, where they continued to reside until the fall of 1875, when they moved to Wexford county, and located on a farm in section 28, Liberty township, where they still reside. He is the owner of sixty acres of land, thirty-five of which is in a fine state of cultivation and well improved. They are the parents of eight children, only three of whom are now living, viz; Leona M., Nellie and Arthur E. Leona is the wife of John F. Gardner. The five other children died early in life. Though by no means active in politics and not a partisan, William H. Gray has been elected to and held at different times the offices of township treasurer and township clerk. He did not seek those positions, but his neighbors of Liberty township, recognizing his worth as a citizen and his integrity as a man, placed him in nomination and elected him without difficulty. He is actively interested in all matters which tend to promote the welfare of the community or improve the conditions of the locality. He is a public-spirited man, interested alike in the material and spiritual good of his fellow creatures. Since 1887 he has been the resident minister of the church of the Disciples of Christ, located at Haire, in Liberty township. His ministerial labors in all those years have been productive of very satisfactory results. The congregation is devout and prosperous and has been for a long time steadily increasing in membership. Mr. Gray and his wife organized June 9, 1876, the first Sunday school ever established in Liberty township. Both have labored nobly to keep alive the Christian spirit in the locality and will doubtless receive a rich reward if not on earth, certainly in heaven. |