Raymond Richard Spray, 1923-1956

SPRAY, WHITE, CATCOTT, LEFFLER, THORNTON, RUBE, MCCABE, JOHNSON, ISAACSON, SWARTOUT, WILSON, HENDRON

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 10/16/2013 at 20:42:36

HUNTER KILLED ACCIDENTALLY

STOCKPORT - Raymond Spray, 33, was killed Friday apparently instantaneously, when a shotgun he was carrying discharged as he was crossing a fence on the George Leffler farm, in the Stockport-Hillsboro vicinity.

Spray had been the tenant on this farm for the past 11 years.

Spray's body was found by his son, Danny.

Harold Catcott, Van Buren county coroner, investigated the accident.

Raymond Richard Spray was the son of Max and Myrtle White Spray, and was born Feb. 19, 1923. He was married to Vivian Thornton, who survives, as do the son and three daughters.

Also surviving are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Max Spray of Hillsboro, and four brothers and five sisters: John Spray and Mrs. Donna Rube, both of Lincoln, Neb.; Thomas Spray, Billings, Mont.; Samuel and Max Spray Jr., Mrs. Margaret McCabe and Mrs. Clarrice Johnson, all of Hillsboro, and Mrs. Dorothy Isaacson and Mrs. Julia Swartout, both of Stockport.

Last rites will be conducted at the Hillsboro Baptist church at 2:30 Sunday afternoon. O.T. Wilson of Mount Pleasant will officiate, assisted by the Rev. Roy Hendron, pastor of the church.

Burial will be in the Hillsboro cemetery, with American Legion rites at the grave side. The body is at the Kasper funeral home, at Salem.

[Undated, unnamed newspaper clipping; probably The Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette; Friday, Nov. 2 1956, handwritten on the clipping]