Supply firm president enjoyed golf, sales, travel

6/12/2003

MONROE - Wesley E. Gray, Jr., who headed a small industrial supply firm for many years, died Monday in Mercy Memorial Hospital here.

He was 82. Mr. Gray had been in ill health for several years. Family members did not know the exact cause of death.

Mr. Gray was president of Armstrong Chemical Products in Monroe, a firm that specialized in the sale of industrial lubricants.

“He loved the sales part of his work,” Dawn Goins, his stepdaughter, said. “Going to businesses, he liked talking to people.”

Mr. Gray, who continued working until recently, enjoyed the traveling his work required. His sales trips took him to Indiana, Illinois, and Sandusky, Ohio.

Born in Norfolk, Va., he grew up in Framingham, Mass., graduating in 1938 from Framingham High School.

Mr. Gray served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and returned to serve in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

Near the end of his military service, he was assigned by the Air Force to recruiting duties in Monroe, where he settled after being discharged in 1955.

An avid golfer, Mr. Gray was president of the Monroe Golf and Country Club in 1972.

Surviving are his wife, Laverne; daughters, Peggy Miller and Virginia Prior; stepson, Glen Carmon; stepdaughter, Dawn Goins; four grandchildren, and six step-grandchildren, and eight step-great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 11 a.m. today in the Earle Little Funeral Home, Bacarella Chapel.