W.C. "Dub" Ray was gracious enough to be our very first speaker. The meeting was held in a small back room of the River Oaks Library. His talk was so very interesting. Mr Ray had an incredible amount of wonderful historical information as well as pictures that kept us a captive audience.Mr. Ray was City Administrator for the City of River Oaks from May 1, 1975 until 1994 when he retired. He served for 19 years.  Dub's father and mother, Roy W. And Pearl Hawpe Ray, were raised in Johnson County.    They married and came to Fort Worth in 1916. Dub was born in 1917 which at the present time makes him 82 years old.  The Ray family lived at 2312 ½ Clinto.   They lived in a shotgun style house, which most of the 50 foot lots had two shotgun houses on them. They also had a cow lot in the back corner of the property.  Mr Roy Ray drove a team of horses with a wagon and delivered meat for Swift & Company. His country run included TCU. Dub said, he can remember when he was 3 or 4 years old he and his dad would go to tend to the horses at the Swift & Company barns. Mr Stitt was over the barns. Later on, Mr Ray drove one of the first trucks that Swift & Company purchased. He worked there until the meat cutters went out on strike in 1920-21. During the strike the drivers were told they better get another job until the strike was over. This is where Dub's dad pooled his assets ($80.00) together with a friend, Will Michalski and opened a grocery store at the corner of Lagonda and 12th Street, which is now called Northside Drive.  Shortly after going into the partnership Mr Ray bought out his partner. In 1930, Mr Ray moved his grocery store down a block to Denver Ave and 12th Street. 

Dub went to school at Circle Park Elementary for about 3 years and then went to the Denver Ave Elementary. One of his first teachers was Miss Ida Greines (married Adolph Cohen). Meyer and Sarah had one daughter, Ida, and 5 sons: Mose, Jake, Abe, David and Sol. Mose, ran the Greines Furniture Store, Jake owned a dry goods store, Abe was a doctor, and David and Sol (twins) were attorneys. The Greines boys never married. Some say it's because mother Greines urged them to marry a Jewish girl, and at that time there were not many Jewish families in the area. The Greines Family was very generousto their communit.   Abe donated the land in the 1500 block of North Main which became Greines Field.

(side story) Travis Matthews, (who later became Fire Chief or Assistant Chief of the Fort Worth Fire Department), and Dub were in Miss Ida Greines class. One day Dub and Travis were talking, Miss Greines had hushed them a time or two. Travis kept talking. Miss Greines picked up Travis' ruler and rapped his knuckles so hard it broke the ruler. Miss Greines was so embarrassed that she sent him down to McIntosh Drug Store, on the corner of Gould and Central to get him another ruler.

Dub had an English teacher at Denver Ave Elementary named Leula Austin. Leula had a sister named Lena Austin who taught Latin at Northside High School.   Leula Austin also taught Dub's mother and dad in the Joshua school system. Dub's mother received her higher education from Cleburg College in Cleburn Tx. Dub attended Northside Junior High which changed it's name later to J.P. Elder Jr High. (Mr Elder was the superintendent of Armour & Company). Then Dub went to Northside High School (located at that time on Park Street).   Dub graduated in 1935 from Northside High School. ( 1937 was the last graduating class from that building.) The building has since been restored (Dub was on the restoration committee with Lela Standifer") and is now used as part of the J.P. Elder Jr High system.

During the summer of 1935, after graduation, Dub had a friend, Doyle Williams, that he went all through school with. Doyle's brother was an ROTC officer at Northside High School . was also also first Sergeant of Troop "A" 124th Cavalry, 56th Brigade First Horse Cavalry Division out of El Paso.  Doyle said his brother wanted us to go to Fort Wolters and do K.P. - Dub didn't know what a K.P. was - fortunately he drug his feet, and the position was filled - about a week later Doyle told Dub that they needed a troop clerk to type out the duty rosters and maybe help with the horses a little. He spent 15 days as a Calvary Troop Clerk in Mineral Wells. Before Dub took the job, the got the captain to promise that he would give him a discharge after the 15 days because the wanted to finish his education. The captain gave him an honorable discharge stating "unable to attend the drills."

Dub said, the went to work at City Packing Company packing house in 1935. His first two weeks with the company he worked 100 hours a week for 25 cents an hour. Then Dub went full-time with the company. He became office manager and stayed there until 1940 when he went into the service.

President Roosevelt decided that all men would have to serve a year in the service. In 1940, five of the Northside boys signed up. Another boy came from the orphans home in Quinlan Tx.  A large article came out in a book called them "The Seven Musketeers".
They served in the 36th Division at Camp Bowie , which during W.W. II Campcommunity. Abe donated the land in the 1500 block of  North Main which became Greines Field.

(side story) Travis Matthews, (who later became Fire Chief or Assistant Chief of the Fort Worth Fire Department), and Dub were in Miss Ida Greines class. One day Dub and Travis were talking, Miss Greines had hushed them a time or two. Travis kept talking. Miss Greines picked up Travis' ruler and rapped his knuckles so hard it broke the ruler. Miss Greines was so embarrassed that she sent him down to McIntosh Drug Store, on the corner of Gould and Central to get him another ruler.

Dub had an English teacher at Denver Ave Elementary named Leula Austin. Leula had a sister named Lena Austin who taught Latin at Northside High School.  Leula Austin also taught Dub's mother and dad in the Joshua school system. Dub's mother received her higher education from Cleburg College in Cleburn Tx. Dub attended Northside Junior High which changed it's name later to J.P. Elder Jr High. (Mr Elder was the superintendent of Armour & Company). Then Dub went to Northside High School (located at that time on Park Street).  Dub graduated in 1935 from Northside High School (1937 was the last graduating class from that building.) The building has since been restored (Dub was on the restoration committee with Lela Standifer") and is now used as part of the J.P. Elder Jr High system.

During the summer of 1935, after graduation, Dub had a friend, Doyle Williams, that he went all through school with. Doyle's brother was an ROTC officer at Northside High School.  He was also also first Sergeant of Troop "A" 124th Cavalry, 56th Brigade First Horse Cavalry Division out of El Paso.  Doyle said his brother wanted us to go to Fort Wolters and do K.P. - Dub didn't know what a K.P. was - fortunately he drug his feet, and the position was filled - about a week later Doyle told Dub that they needed a troop clerk to type out the duty rosters and maybe help with the horses a little.  He spent 15 days as a Calvary Troop Clerk in Mineral Wells. Before Dub took the job, the got the captain to promise that he would give him a discharge after the 15 days because the wanted to finish his education. The captain gave him an honorable discharge stating "unable to attend the drills."

Dub said, the went to work at City Packing Company packing house in 1935. His first two weeks with the company he worked 100 hours a week for 25 cents an hour. Then Dub went full-time with the company. He became office manager and stayed there until 1940 when he went into the service.

President Roosevelt decided that all men would have to serve a year in the service. In 1940, five of the Northside boys signed up. Another boy came from the orphans home in Quinlan Tx.  A large article came out in a book called them "The Seven Musketeers".
They served in the 36th Division at Camp Bowie, which during W.W. II Camp Bowie had relocated to Brownwood, Texas.  Dub carried the colors during W.W. ll and was personnel Sergeant for about 4 years.  Recuit pay was $21.00 a month for the first six months of service but because he had prior service in the Calvary he was able to draw his non-com pay.  Dub was home the week=end the war was declared.  On Monday night his regiment was told that they would be going to the West Coast ASAP.  They traveled five ddays and five nights,blacked-out.  They had a pilot and seven train loads of troops that mived his regiment.  Dub didn't know at the time that their distination would be Fort Lewis, Washington.  The regiment stayed there only one week and moved on to Prtland, Oregon (where he met his wife Kay.)  Because of the war, Dub ended up serving over five yeas instead of serving only one year like President Roosevelt had originally requested.  He was discharged with the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major.

The Ray family never opened  the grocery store on Sunday.  Dub said that when he was young and worked at the family grocery store whatever meat they didn't sell at the store Saturday, they had for breakfast on Sunday morning.  In 1947, Mr. Ray and Dub opened Ray's Food Market, on highway199 in Lake Worth.  The store was open until 1959.  Mr. Ray's friend, Vance Godbey had a grocery store just down the raod from him on Cheyene Street near the Lake Worth Elementary School.  At that time Dub and VanceGodbey were on the Lake Worth VolunteerDepartment.

Dub was president of the Fort Worth Retail Grocers Association when his dad died in 1955.  But Dub continued

       Carl (Bud) has two daughters and a son, who are: Linda Potter, Peggy Saldino and Tony Ray. Linda has a beautiful singing voice and was in the first graduating class at Castleberry High School.    Bud is retired from the Gearhart-Owens Company and lives in the North Beverly Hills Edition, Linda lives in Phoenix, Tony lives in Fort Worth , Peggy lives in Saginaw.  Dub married his wife, Kathleen (Kay), in Charleston, South Carolina .They moved to the River Oaks area in 1946 and built their home at 1704 Glenwick.  They have three children, Roger, Randy and Robin. All three of their children graduated from Castleberry ISD. The oldest, Roger, is a graduate of UTA and UT. He received his masters in math and then went on into actuarial science. He lives in north Arlington and has two sons, Lance and Derek. Randy is a graduate of UT. He is a medical technician at the Life-Sign Diagnostic and lives in south Arlington and has two step-children, Jeremy and Kate. Robin Gomez is a graduate of UT and lives in the Ridglea Country Estates. She has two children, Elise and Gilbert III.