Ralph S. Gregory was born in Delaware
county, Indiana, February 28, 1846. He
lived upon a farm until fifteen years old,
when he entered the high school at Muncie,
Indiana. After completing the course of
study there he entered Wabash College,
where he continued his studies until 1862,
when he entered the army as a private
soldier in Company B, Eighty-fourth Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He remained in
the army about two years, when, on account
of failing health, he was honorably discharged at Shellmound, Tennessee, having
attained the rank of orderly sergeant. On
returning home, having regained his health,
he again entered Wabash College and remained there through the junior year. He
then entered Asbury University, now Depauw University, where he graduated with
honors in the class of 1867. The year following his graduation he was superintend-
ent of the high school of the city of Huntington, Indiana. He studied law and was
admitted to the bar in 1869, and continued
the practice of that profession. His practice
in both the civil and criminal courts has been
successful and lucrative. He has won an
enviable reputation for himself as an advocate and is known throughout the state.
He has won especial distinction in the practice of the criminal law. He belongs to
many of the leading secret and fraternal
societies, such as the Masons, Knights
Templar, Knights of Pythias and the Improved Order of Red Men, and has held
many of the great offices in these societies,
and especially in that of the Improved Order
of Red Men, in which order he has been the
great incohonee, which is the chief officer
of the order in the world. He is a close observer of men and things, and perhaps no
one in Delaware county has a wider and
more intimate acquaintance with the people
of the state than he. He has always been
a Republican since his majority, except in
the campaign of 1892, when his study of
the tariff, and the attitude of certain leading
statesmen on the subject of bi-metalism, or
the coinage of gold and silver as money
upon a parity and equality, compelled him
to withhold his politcal influence from the
success of the Republican candidate.
Mr. Gregory has a wife and two children, Walter Leon and Florence Madden
Gregory. Mrs. Anna C. Gregory, the
mother of these, was born at Piqua, Ohio,
in 1863, a daughter of Timothy C. Madden,
of Irish parentage. |