New book chronicles Gregory family service

A new book documenting two generations of the Gregory family has been written and published by Chris Gregory, a retired teacher who was raised at Oakesdale and now resides in Tekoa. Gregory worked on the book project for approximately a year.

Called “Buckshot Pie,” the book chronicles the family’s early struggles to homestead half a section of land in the Winona area, their enduring drive to keep together and growing at Oakesdale during the Great Depression and their answers to a call to serve their country during World War II.

“For the past 55 years, I’ve thought that this story should be told. I never knew I’d be the one to write it though,” Gregory commented.

He plans a book signing session at Main Street Books in Colfax from 2 to 4 p.m Aug. 31.

A Vietnam veteran who served in the Marine Corps, Gregory earned a teaching degree in 1973 from Central Washington University in Ellensburg and served for 36 years as teacher and administrator for school districts in Eastern Washington. During that time he picked up a master’s degree and principal’s and superintendent’s credentials. He was also a basketball coach for 26 years.

Last August he began to write down ideas for the book and took a month to research the material. He started using a word processor after Christmas and the research continued throughout the writing process. The manuscript was done by May.

Buckshot Pie, a term the family used to describe their mothers wild elderberry pie, tells the story of Charles R. and Pearl Johnson Gregory who homesteaded 320 acres in the Winona area in 1912. The Jordan-Knott road runs along the northern border of the homestead.

The book documents the 14-hour days Charles Sr. worked to make the farm a success in the early days of dryland farming in the western part of Whitman County.

Photos in the book also show a 1915 photo of Gregory on Winona’s semi-pro baseball club and wife Pearl with children at a meeting of the Texas Draw Ladies Club.

The account of the young homesteaders took a drastic turn when Charles Sr., at age 34, died of pneumonia in 1926. He was survived by his wife Pearl and six young children.

Despite support from neighbors and family members, Pearl was forced to give up the homestead and moved to Oakesdale where she found work as a mid-wife.

The six children grew to maturity in Oakesdale during the Great Depression with Charles Jr. as the male head of the family. He is pictured as an eighth grader at Oakesdale in 1930.

An Oakesdale photo in 1938 shows the five Gregory boys, Mel, then in seventh grade; Delbert, ninth grade; Donald (Speck) a senior; Chet, a junior and Charles Jr., then out of school.

Daughter Juanita, (Nita) was a member of the Oakesdale High class of 1936.

While reading of the hard and happy times the family encountered growing up, readers become aware that the family early in the next decade would face World War II.

The oldest, Charles, departed for service in the Army Air Corps in 1940. A pre-war recruit, he was serving in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he survived the battle of Bataan and the infamous death march on Luzon. He and other prisoners who survived captivity in the Phillipines were shipped off the island in October of 1944, and he died aboard a a Japanese coal freighter.

Donald served on B-17 crews in North Africa. Chester worked on B-17 and B-29 assembly lines. Delbert, who had started a career as a mechanic, served in the Army Air Corps aboard C-47s in Burma, and Mel, the youngest, received his mother’s permission to join the Army at age 17. He served as a machine gunner in Italy and was part of the Normandy Invasion. Mel was captured and sent to a German Stalag where he spent the rest of the war until he was liberated by Russian troops in May of 1945.

Buckshot Pie concludes by following the Gregory brothers and the sister Juanita Arline as they returned home from their war duties to marry and start families.