Thomas R. Gregory, one of the last original cotton brokers of Greenwood, died Saturday at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Mr. Gregory, 88, was described by his family as “straight off of Cotton Row,” a man of great stories who will be remembered fondly by many.
Mr. Gregory had three sons,Tommy Jr., Bob and Jim Gregory.
“He was a very special guy,” Jim said. “He really had a lot of friends.”
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Wilson and Knight Funeral Home with visitation beginning at 9.
Mr. Gregory was a lifelong resident of Greenwood and graduated from Greenwood High School in 1939. He spent much of his time with friends and enjoying the outdoors at the Goose Pond Hunting Club or at his lake house in Carroll County.
“He loved Greenwood and all of the people here,” his son, Bob, said. “He enjoyed being outdoors in the Greenwood area. He never aspired to live anywhere else.”
Bob said that he could not have asked for a better dad.
“He was the father that every son dreams of having,” he said. “He was always there for us for everything. He supported us in sports, and he taught us how to hunt and fish.”
Bob said one of his strongest memories of his father was when he attended his Little League games.
“I could hear him hollering from the stands, encouraging me on.”
Mr. Gregory served in the U.S. Navy as a quartermaster first class aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Chauncey during World War II.
Bob recalled one of his father’s memories of the war, which he shared with his sons shortly before his death.
“He was a gunner on the destroyer, and a kamikaze was coming straight for him,” Bob said. “They kept trying to bring it down but couldn’t.”
He said that his father told him that at the last minute, for no apparent reason, the kamikaze veered away from them.
“He told (his sons) if that plane wouldn’t have veered you all might not be here today,” Bob said.
After the war, he started working for Barnwell and Flowers Cotton Co. while playing outfield for the 1947 Greenwood Dodgers, a Cotton States League AA farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
“Dad was a good ball player,” Tommy said. “When he was a kid he started out as a bat boy. It was a real local-boy-makes-good story.”
Tommy said his father was even asked to move up to AAA baseball, but he didn’t want to go to California.
Despite his success on the baseball field, Mr. Gregory did not have the best of vision.
“Back then they didn’t do many tests for eyesight,” Tommy said. “He thought he could see the same as anybody else. He used to tell me it would be hard to know what he could have done if he knew he needed glasses.”
When he finished his baseball career, Mr. Gregory, a third-generation cotton man, founded the T.R. Gregory Cotton Co., a brokerage firm he operated from Cotton Row for more than 50 years.
“Those guys (on Cotton Row) sure did have fun,” Tommy said. “They worked hard, and they played hard.”
Mr. Gregory also owned the Cotton Row Club — for about two weeks.
Emmett Chassaniol, owner of Chassaniol & Co. Cotton and a longtime friend of Mr. Gregory’s, explained how Mr. Gregory won the club in a game of gin rummy.
“Old Man Whetstone owned the Cotton Club and owed Mr. Gregory about $600,” Chassaniol said. “They were down there playing, and Mr. Gregory was beating him pretty good again.
“Then all of a sudden, without even saying a word, Old Man Whetstone stood up pulled some keys out of his pocket and threw them at Mr. Gregory. He went upstairs, packed a few things and no one heard from him again.”
His days as a club owner were short-lived, though.
“He went home and told his wife,” Chassaniol said. “And she said, ‘Congratulations, now get rid of it.’”
Chassaniol said for the past year he has truly enjoyed going into Thomas Gregory’s office and listening to more of his stories.
“He was a great storyteller and a great cotton man,” he said. “The cotton business used to be everyone caring about everyone else, but it’s different now.”
If anyone was compiling the stories of Cotton Row, a valuable source was lost Saturday.
“He knew all of the stories,” Chassaniol said. “If there were stories of Cotton Row that were unknown or untold, they will now stay unknown and untold.”
Chassaniol said his family had been friends with the Gregorys for generations.
“I will really miss him,” he said. “Everyone liked Mr. Gregory. He was a great friend.”
Mr. Gregory would also spend two to three months a year at his office in Texas, tending to the cotton business there during the summer.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 63 years, Marguerite Pettey Gregory.
“He and my mother were the love affair of the century,” Tommy said. “All he ever had was one girlfriend, and it was my mother. It’s a love story that not many can match.”
