Staggs Family History

BIRTH: 6 Oct 1873, Texas, USA
DEATH: 22 Jan 1943, Merkel, Taylor, Texas, USA
FATHER: John Marion Gregory (1852–1891)
MOTHER: Mary Jane Burk (1857–1928)
SPOUSE: Mollie Viola Crotwell (1883–1951)

When William Pinkney Gregory was born on October 6, 1873, in Texas, his father, John, was 20 and his mother, Mary, was 16. He married Mollie Viola Crotwell on January 4, 1898, in Milam, Texas. They had ten children in 25 years. He died on January 22, 1943, in Merkel, Texas, at the age of 69, and was buried there.

The Life of William Pinkney Gregory

A Texas Life of Work, Family, and Quiet Strength

William Pinkney Gregory was born on 6 October 1873, in the wide, sun‑bleached country of Texas during the long, uneasy years after the Civil War. He was the eldest child of John Marion Gregory and Mary Jane Burk Chism, and from the beginning he carried the weight and responsibility that often falls on the firstborn in a frontier family.

His childhood was shaped by the rhythms of rural Texas — the smell of dust after rain, the creak of wagon wheels, the endless work of tending land that never quite gave anything for free. His father died when William was still young, and his mother remarried, creating a blended household where William learned early how to work hard, how to share, and how to stand steady when life shifted under his feet.

A Young Man in Milam County

By the time he reached adulthood, William had become the kind of man Texas depended on: quiet, capable, and unafraid of long days. On 4 January 1898, in Milam County, he married Mollie Viola Crotwell, a woman ten years his junior whose warmth and steadiness matched his own. Together they began building a family that would eventually span ten children and nearly half a century of shared life.

Their early years were spent in Milam County, where William farmed the land and Mollie kept the household running. Children arrived in steady succession — Mary Etta, Edna Mae, Willie, Charlie, Arthur Burk, Mildred, James Percy, Robert Rufus, William Richard, and finally Alberta, born in 1924, the baby of the family who would one day become the Alberta Gregory you know so well.

A Father Through Changing Times

William lived through a world that changed faster than any generation before him. He was born into a Texas of horse trails and lantern light, and he lived to see automobiles, radios, telephones, and the early years of World War II. Yet through all of it, his own life remained rooted in the land.

Census records show him again and again as a farmer, a man who rose before dawn, who measured his days by the sun and the seasons, who understood the stubbornness of soil and the patience required to coax a living from it. His children grew up knowing the feel of cotton bolls, the sound of wind through dry grass, and the certainty that their father would be out in the fields long after others had gone inside.

The Move to Taylor County

By the 1930s, William and Mollie had settled in Taylor County, near the town of Merkel, a place of open skies and tight‑knit communities. Their older children married and scattered across Texas, but the younger ones — including Alberta — grew up in the Merkel years, shaped by the Great Depression and the quiet resilience of their parents.

Legacy of William Pinkney Gregory

William was not a man who sought attention. He didn’t leave behind speeches or grand stories. What he left was a reputation: a man who worked hard, who loved his family, who kept his word, and who lived the kind of steady life that holds a household together.

On 22 January 1943, at the age of sixty‑nine, William died in Merkel. He was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, a quiet resting place not far from the land he had worked and the home he had built. Mollie would live eight more years before joining him.

Their children — ten in all — carried the Gregory name into the next generation. Some stayed in Texas, some moved west, some raised families of their own that now number in the hundreds. And among them was Alberta, the daughter who inherited her father’s steadiness and her mother’s warmth, and who carried the Gregory story into California and beyond.

William Pinkney Gregory was not a famous man, but he was the kind of man who built the world the famous people lived in. His life was measured not in headlines but in harvests, not in speeches but in the laughter of children around a kitchen table, not in monuments but in the generations who came after him.

Parents

FATHER: John Marion Gregory (1852–1891)
MOTHER: Mary Jane Burk (1857–1928)

Marriages

Mollie Viola Crotwell (1883–1951) married 4 Jan 1898 in Milam, Texas

Children

• Mary Ettie Gregory (1899–1984) married Charles W Simpson (1876–1960)
• Edna Mae Gregory (1901–1986) married George Edward Miller (1890–1972)
• Willie Gregory (1904–1961) married William Edmond Fagan (1896–1968)
• Charlie Faye Gregory (1909–1977)
• Arthur Burk Gregory (1910–1967) married Hazel Gray (1913–1998)
• Percy Elmer Gregory (1912–1954) married Lela Bell Steward (1919–1981)
• Mildred Marie Gregory (1916–1981) married Charles Frank Ortiz
• Robert Rufus Gregory (1918–1987) married Zella Wilson
• William Richard Gregory (1922–2012) married Jean —-
• Alberta Gregory (1924–1990) married 3rd Lester Edgar (1924–1998)

Documents

• Birth Records
  • Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903-1982 > Name: William P Gregory; Birth Date: 6 Oct 1873; Birth Place: Texas
• Marriage records
  • Texas, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1817-1965 > Name: W P Gregory; Gender: Male; Marriage Date: 4 Jan 1898; Marriage Place: Milam, Texas, USA; Spouse: Viola Crottle; Film Number: 000981390
• Death records
  • Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903-1982 > Name: William P Gregory; Gender: Male; Race: White; Death Age: 69; Birth Date: 6 Oct 1873; Birth Place: Texas; Residence Date: Abt 1943; Residence Place: Merkel, Taylor, Texas, USA; Death Date: 22 Jan 1943; Death Place: Merkel, Taylor, Texas, USA; Father: John Marion Gregory; Mother: Mary Jane Burk
  • Texas, U.S., Death Index, 1903-2000 > Name: William P. Gregory; Death Date: 22 Jan 1943; Death Place: Taylor, Texas, USA; Certificate Number: 4920
  • Find a Grave > William Pinkney Gregory, Birth: 6 Oct 1873, Texas, USA; Death: 22 Jan 1943 (aged 69), Merkel, Taylor County, Texas, USA
  • Burial: Rose Hill Cemetery, Merkel, Taylor County, Texas, USA, Plot: 2nd Addition, Block P, Lot W 14, Space 2
• Census Records
  • 1880 United States Federal Census > Texas > Robertson > Not Stated > 139 > Name:
    W.P. Gregory (Age 5) living with parents J.M. Gregory (27, farmer) and M.J. Gregory (22) and siblings W.E. Gregory (3) and J.R. Gregory (1)
  • 1900 United States Federal Census > Texas > Milam > Justice Precinct 02 > District 0068 > William McGregory (24, farmer), and wife Viola McGregory (16) and child Etta McGregory (1)
  • 1910 United States Federal Census > Texas > Hill > Justice Precinct 7 > District 0173 > W P Gregory (36, farmer), wife Viola Gregory (27) and children Ettie Gregory (11), May Gregory (8), Willie Gregory (5) and Charles Gregory (2)
  • 1930 United States Federal Census > Texas > Johnson > Precinct 4 > District 0017 > Wm P Gregory (age 56, farm laborer) and wife Viola Gregory (age 47), with children Arthur B Gregory (19), Mildred Gregory (13), Rufus R Gregory (11) Wm R Gregory (8), Alberta Gregory (5)
  • 1940 United States Federal Census > Texas > Taylor > Merkel > 221-28 > W T Gregory (67; Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 6th grade; Weeks Worked in 1939: 0; Income: $0) and wife Viola Gregory (57; Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 4th grade) with son Rufus Gregory (21, laborer)
• Other
  • U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 > Name: William Pinkney Gregory; Race: White; Birth Date: 6 Oct 1873; Residence Date: 1917-1918; Street Address: 3; Residence Place: Johnson County, Texas, USA; Physical Build: Medium; Height: Medium; Hair Color: Brown; Eye Color: Brown; Spouse: Mollie Viola Gregory
  • U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 > Name: William Gregory; Gender: Male; Spouse: Molly V Crottle; Child: Alberta Gregory Gouge

Relation of William Pinkney Gregory to Karen Edgar: grandfather

Page last updated May 20, 2026

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