Early Life
Born in Kankakee, Illinois, Gray grew up on a farm near the small town of Chebanse, Illinois. His parents, Ira L. Gray and Estella M. Rosencrans, both died before he finished high school in 1912 in West Lafayette, Indiana, where the family had moved. In 1913, he got his first newspaper job at a Lafayette daily. He graduated from Purdue University in 1917 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, but as an artist, he was largely self-taught. In 1917, he found a position with the Chicago Tribune at a salary of $15 a week. During World War I, he served as a bayonet instructor with the rank of lieutenant. Discharged from the military, he returned to the Chicago Tribune and stayed until 1919 when he left to freelance in commercial art. In 1923, while residing in Lombard, Illinois, he became a Freemason.
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