A Grassburr Love Story

Our special collections and archives staff has being going through all the print copies of the Grassburr yearbooks (also online) that we have, to figure out which ones we should keep.  We came across two from 1933 that have an interesting story and connection.  Click on all images throughout this post to view them larger.

The first book belonged to James Byron "Mississippi" Gregory, who graduated from Tarleton in 1933.  Besides his name and nickname inside the front cover, we found a couple loose items - his diploma, and a valentine.

Here's the inside of the valentine.  It is signed simply, "Jo."

Another yearbook from 1934 belonged to a Josephine "Jo" Coleman, who listed her address inside the front cover as 4709 Pershing in Fort Worth.  It had an envelope pasted inside the front cover, with a handwritten paper titled "Advice for girl" (with some pretty bad puns) folded inside it:




Paging through Byron's yearbook to the page with Jo's picture, among the many signatures there is "Yo te amo. Jo," next to journalism major Josephine Coleman's name and picture.  Yo te amo is, of course, Spanish for "I love you."  Jo served as a proofreader on the J-TAC.

Further on in Byron's yearbook (on the blank page opposite the beginning of the Athletics section), Jo wrote a long message to "my darling" Byron, including these sentences:

"You are a part of Tarleton - it will never be complete without you.  Tarleton gave me a lot of things - things both in and out of books, these things I shall never be able to forget.  You are the most important."

Paging through Jo's yearbook to the page with Byron's senior picture, you can see he was from Thaxton, Mississippi (hence the nickname), and majored in Agricultural Education.  He was a member of the Hired Hands club, the Glee Club, the basketball team, and the "T" Association.  To the right of the picture, he wrote this message for Jo:  "just a crazy boy what's very fond of you.  Try to love Mississippi a little bit always."

Byron's yearbook included a number of loose items tucked among the pages, including these photographs.  They may not all be from his time at Tarleton.  Unfortunately none of the photographs has any identifying information, although the headshot is clearly of Byron.  There was also a calling card from Jo (whose given first name was actually Mary), with a handwritten note wishing him a happy birthday.

There was also a paper John Tarleton Agricultural College pennant (scanned here against the reverse side of Byron's diploma, to provide adequate contrast).

Jo's yearbook had a number of glued-in items, particularly clippings from the J-TAC newspaper.  There weren't as many loose items, but one was a negative, which I scanned to produce this lovely image.  It wasn't immediately clear if this was Jo, though.

There was another loose item proved to be significant - a graduation program for the 1930 class of W. C. Stripling High School.

What was Stripling High School from 1927 to 1937 is now Stripling Middle School in Fort Worth.  The school is just a few blocks from Jo's Pershing street home address.  A little more searching turned up Josephine's picture in the high school's 1931 yearbook, and it looks just like the picture of the graduate above.

According to his obituary in the July 30, 1998 Fort Worth Star Telegram (page 8), James Byron "Mississippi" Gregory was born December 18, 1910, in Thaxton, Mississippi, one of 13 children.  After graduating from Tarleton in 1933, he attended what was them Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater.  (He is in their 1934 and 1935 yearbooks, and also attended the 1934 summer session).

In the 1940 Census, Byron and Jo are living in Idabel, McCurtain County, Oklahoma, and are listed as married.  J. B. (Byron) is a county agent and has had five years of college.  Josephine (Jo) has one year of college, so it appears she did not return to Tarleton after the 1932-1933 school year.  In 1935, Byron was living in Stillwater and Jo in Fort Worth, so they must have married sometime between 1935 and 1940.

Byron served in the Oklahoma National Guard, and then joined the Army, serving in World War II.  He and Jo lived in Texas, Germany, Kansas, Indiana, Virginia, and Taiwan during his service, according to the Alumni J-TAC.  He retired from the military in 1962 as a colonel with the Army adjutant general's office in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. After retirement, he became a real estate broker and retired again in 1982.  He died July 27, 1998, in Fort Worth.  

Mary Josephine "Jo" Coleman Gregory was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on March 13, 1913, the oldest of two daughters.  She died October 21, 1994, in Fort Worth.  The couple is buried in Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth.

They had no children, and Byron was a Diamond Century Club member in the 1996-97 Tarleton Alumni Association, so that is perhaps how these two lovebirds' yearbooks ended up back at Tarleton.