Marion County, West Virginia Biography of Richard Earl MCCRAY This file was submitted by Suzie Crump, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. 251 RICHARD EARL MCCRAY is a graduate doctor of dental surgery and for over a dozen years has enjoyed prestige and the leading practice in Fairmont, where he has been equally known for his business enterprise. Doctor McCray was born at Fairmont, October 15, 1886, son of Charles Edward and Martha Virginia (Prichard) McCray. His grandparents, John and Rebecca (Cunningham) McCray, were also natives of Marion County, and his maternal grandparents, Thomas and Harriet (Morse) Prichard, were born in the same county, so that more than three generations of these worthy families have been represented in this section of West Virginia. Charles E. McCray was born in Marion County in 1850, and has spent his life there. By trade he is a harness-maker, an occupation he followed in Marion County, but later became a merchant of Fairmont and is now living retired. His wife, Martha Virginia Prichard, was born in the Paw Paw District of Marion County in 1855. Richard E. McCray acquired a public education at Fairmont, graduated from high school in 1904, spent one year at the Fairmont State Normal School, in 1905 entered the Ohio State University at Columbus, and took the course in dental surgery at the Starling, Ohio, Dental College, now incorporated in the Ohio State University. He graduated with the degree of D. D. S. in 1909, and soon afterward took up active practice at Fairmont. Doctor McCray is a member of the West Virginia State Dental Society, the Monongahela Valley Dental Society, of which he was president in 1919, and is the present secretary of the Marion County School Dental Clinic Society. One of the widely known business enterprises having its home at Fairmont is The McCray System Advertising Company, Inc., with which Doctor McCray has been actively associated for a number of years, and of which he was formerly president. He is now president of the firm McCray & McCray, theatrical enterprises, an organization founded in 1908 by him in association with his brother, Frank C. McCray. Doctor McCray is affiliated with Fairmont Lodge No. 294, B. P. O. E. and is a member of the Psi Chapter of the Ohio State University and of the Psi Omega dental fraternity. In 1912 he married Miss Bonnie Marie Orr. She was born at Clarksburg, West Virginia, May 27, 1895, daughter of Frederick Bruce and Laverna Angelina (Wyer) Orr, of Harrison County, West Virginia. The two children of Doctor and Mrs. McCray are Bonnie Jean, born March 11, 1916; and Richard Earl, Jr., born March 3, 1921.