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Submitted: 7/16/21 • Approved: 7/17/21 • Last Updated: 7/20/21 • R1382453-G1382450-S3
Oliver
CAPTAIN
Company A 3 Arkansas Cavalry
Civil War Confederate
December 30, 1832 - December 5, 1905
*Obituary (News Article)
Fayetteville Democrat
Thursday, February 1, 1906
GRAY, Oliver C. – Resolutions of Baldwin Commandery No. 4 on the Death of Brother Oliver C. Gray – To the officers and members of Baldwin Commandery No. 4.
We, your committee appointed to draft suitable resolutions on the death of our beloved Frater, Oliver C. Gray, beg leave to make the following report and move its adoption with the accompanying resolutions:
Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise Providence, to take out of this world the soul of or deceased Frater, we bow with reverence and humility of the Divine will and hereby express our appreciation of Brother Gray’s character.
As a Mason from the first to the thirty-second degree and from the Blue Lodge of the Asylum, it was not alone or principally the Ritual and the outward ceremonies; he observed and loved these because they embodied and taught the deep principals of proper living.
As a lover of Symbolic Masonry he endeavored to circumscribe his actions and keep his passions within due bonds, squaring his actions by the principals of virtue and morality, walking uprightly toward God and men, ever remembering he was traveling on the level of time to that country from whose bourne no traveler returns.
As a Caputular Mason he was clothed with fervency and zeal being ever ready to dispense light and knowledge to his less informed brethren and endued that with purity of heart and restitude of conduct the should characterize everyone who seeks to enter the sacred Tabernacle above.
He was true Knight Templar who ever strove to keep his vows. He was a Knight without fear and without reproach, ever bearing himself courteously, gallantly and knightly. He was a man of unsullied reputation and spotless soutcheon who was ever ready to help the down trodden and oppressed and to draw his sword in defense of destitute widows, helpless orphans, innocent maidens and the Christian religion.
Our Frater’s pilgrimage is ended and his warfare accomplished and he now rests in the Asylum of Peace, the Paradise of God. Peace be to his ashes and may light perpetual shine upon him.
Resolved , that, in mourning the loss of our dear Frater, we thank God for his good example and pray to Him to give us grace so to pass the time of our pilgrimage and to accomplish our warfare as to be accounted worthy to enter into the Asylum of Perpetual rest
Resolved, that a copy of this preamble and these resolutions be sent to his widow and family with the assurance that their sorrow be our sorrow.
Resolved, that a copy be sent to the city papers to be printed in their daily and weekly issues. (Signed) Jas. J. Vaulx, H.F. Reagan, C.H. Brough – Approved in open Commanding Jan. 25, 1906, A.O. 788. Frank Hill, Recorder.
Mary
Unknown - February 17, 1938
*Obituary
Northwest Arkansas Times
Friday, February 18, 1938
GRAY, Mary Melbourne BORLAND Beattie - Mrs. O. C. Gray Dies in K.C.; Burial Here - Step-Mother of Carl Gray, Union Pacific President; Funeral Tomorrow A.M.- Mrs. Mary Beattie Gray, step-mother of Carl Gray, president of the Union Pacific railway, and wife of the late Col. Oliver Crosby Gray, for many years a resident of Fayetteville and Little Rock, died yesterday in Kansas City.
The body was cremated in Kansas City today and accompanied by Carl Gray and his step-sister, Mrs. John Beattie Bell of Belzoni, Miss., is expected to arrive in Fayetteville for burial tomorrow, over the Frisco lines.
The funeral party will reach here at 9:35 a.m. and proceed at once to Evergreen cemetery where the ashes will be buried beside Col. Gray. Friends of the family who care to do so are asked to join the funeral party at the train and accompany them to the cemetery where funeral services will be said.
Rev. Harry Goodykoontz, pastor of First Presbyterian church of which the Gray family were members during their residence here, and in which Col. Gray was an elder during his local residence, will officiate.
Col. Gray was a veteran of the Confederate Army, third Arkansas Cavalry, and was buried in Fayetteville with Confederate military honors following his death in Little Rock where he served as head of the blind school for a number of years after leaving Fayetteville where he was on the University faculty.
Col. and Mrs. Gray and Col. Gray's son, Carl Gray, and Mrs. Gray's two daughters resided in Fayetteville on Dickson street near the Frisco station where Carl Gray got his first railway job. A portion of the home is still standing.
Mrs. Gray was the former Mrs. Mary M. Beattie. Besides her famous step-son, she leaves two daughters, Mrs. John Bell of Belzoni, Miss., who accompanies the ashes, and Miss Grace Beattie, an instructor in the Colorado School for the Deaf at Boulder, Colo., who is unable to be present.
Mrs. Gray lived here from her marriage to Col. Gray in 1889 until the family removed to Little Rock [1895] where Col. Gray died.
Her husband returned to Arkansas after the War Between the States to resume his teaching in which he was engaged before hostilities. He first was principal of St. John's Junior College in Little Rock and later its president from which office he and his family came to Fayetteville where he was professor of mathematics on the University faculty from 1875 to 1886. In 1886 Col. Gray resigned from the University faculty to accept principalship of Fayetteville public schools, which office he held two years, after which he returned to the University, a position he held until 1895, when he was elected superintendent of the blind school at Little Rock. From 1899 to 1901 he was principal of the Speers-Langford Institution at Searcy. In 1901 he was re-elected blind school superintendent, a position he held until his death.
He was twice married. His first wife was Miss Virginia L. Davis, [Carl Gray's mother] to whom he was married in 1857. In 1889 he was married to Mrs. Mary M. Beattie who with her two daughters, mentioned above, and his son, survived him.
Mrs. Gray for a number of years has been ill in Kansas City and her death was not unexpected.
*Source: Sons of Confederate Veterans, Washington County, Arkansas 2009
Compiled by William W Degge
Contributed on 7/16/21 by judyfrog
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Record #: 1382453