Longtime Snyder resident Paul Novell "Dick" Gray passed away at his home Tuesday, March 26, 2019.
His Celebration of Life service will be held on Saturday, March 30 at 4:00PM at Bell Cypert Seale Funeral Home Chapel with burial to follow in Hillside Memorial Gardens under the direction of Bell Cypert Seale Funeral Home.
Born December 5, 1919, at home in the country outside Proctor, Texas, Dick was the third of nine children of Rush Oliver Gray and Gertrude (Gertie) Dean (Woolsey) Gray. He graduated from Comyn High School when there were only eleven grades to complete for graduation, a fact that he said "suited him just fine."
Dick's early years during The Depression were spent working wherever he could find a job to be able to send money back home. Those stints in Houston, Borger, Monahans, Eunice, New Mexico and California were precursors to what formed Dick's drive and devotion to succeed.
That work ethic followed Dick his whole life and that is how he'll be remembered by those who knew him. Finding work harder and harder to get, he and his three best friends decided to "get steady, easy work" and, together, they enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force on June 3, 1941 and joined the 2nd Service Squadron, 46th Group and were sent to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1941, at a dance in Hondo, Texas, Dick met the love of his life, Alice. But with the outbreak of World War II and about to be shipped overseas to the Phillippines, he asked Alice to wait for him and said if he made it back home, he wanted her to marry him. At the war's end, Staff Sargent Paul Gray was Honorably Discharged on January 13, 1946 and headed home to Alice. Four days after his discharge, on January 17, 1946, Dick and Alice were married in Llano and the Gray family odyssey began.
The two moved to Eunice, New Mexico where Dick worked for Samedan Oil Company until he moved Alice and new son Rodney, to a Phillips Petroleum Company oil camp outside Goldsmith, Texas. In December, 1952, son Gordon was born and in mid 1953, the family moved to Snyder and Dick joined Burdell Oil Company and his mentor, Elmer Cook. Burdell dissolved, but Dick continued work in the oil business and over the years, he , along with Alice and other partners, founded and were the principals of Paul Gray Oil Company, Dick and Bill Roustabout Crews, TransTexTool Company, Submersible Services Inc., as well as other oil field related businesses. He loved working until the night he passed away and couldn't have loved his Paul Gray Farms operation, his oil business nor his family more. He was a conservative, save-everything-to-repurpose-later kind of guy, who was also a no-nonsense, get it done, self-made man, and a throwback of the nearly 100 years that he lived, and a man who had a catalog memory that served him until death. As he will always be that, in our hearts and memories.
Dick was preceded in death by his wife, best friend and partner in all things, Alice on July 26, 2000. Also preceding Dick's passing were his parents, all eight of his siblings, in birth order, Ruby, Winnie, Hazel, Jack, R.O.(Junior), Joe, Melba and Ruth Ann, as well as many members of their extended families.
Dick is survived by sons Rodney, of Aledo, Gordon, of Snyder and their wives, Mary and Barbara. Also surviving are grandson Brandon and Erin Sopronyl of Lubbock; grandson Stafford and wife Megan and great granddaughters Caroline and Charlotte of Lonoke, Arkansas; Alan, wife Jerica and great granddaughter Piper of Snyder, and grandson Spencer and fiance' Danielle Sears of Ira. Also surviving are nieces and nephews who really loved their "Uncle Dick."
Special THANKS to Peaches Coward, who cared for Dick as if he was her own family and they regularly got into heated games of "31" and dominoes.
In lieu of flowers, the family wishes that memorials be made to your favorite charity or to VFW organizations, Snyder Senior Citizens Center, Cogdell Memorial Hospital,Shriner's Children's Hospital, or West Texas Rehab.
