William Prescott Walling

William Prescott Walling was born at Iredell, Bosque County, Texas, on June 7, 1906, the son of William Terrell and John Edna Prescott Walling. Masonry ran in the family: his father was a Past Master of Anahuac Lodge No. 995, and his grandfather was a Past Master of Chester Lodge No. 459 at Chester, Arkansas, and a 33° Scottish Rite Mason. He finished high school at Anahuac and lived in Houston from then on. He married Ardyce Mae on December 25, 1938. For 25 years he served as a deacon and ruling elder of Second Presbyterian Church. An automobile supplies salesman, he once won a sales trip to Madrid, Spain, and he enjoyed fishing, bowling and travel.

He became a Mason in Gray Lodge in 1943, receiving the Entered Apprentice degree on August 25, the Fellowcraft on October 13, and the Master Mason degree on November 19. Appointed Junior Steward in 1944, he filled every place and station in the line except Junior Warden. He was installed as the 78th Master in 1949 by Past Masters Bryan Funderburke, Sr., and K. E. Gaugler, and Past Master W. J. Coulson, Jr., spoke on how Masonry seeks to make good men better.

The lodge had grown to more than 1,400 members, and the building needed attention: the boiler had been condemned and had to be replaced before winter, along with the heating system and the cold-water motor, while $10,000 a year was still going to retire the building certificates. When the lodges of the 30th District were asked to furnish the offices of the Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master in the new Grand Lodge Memorial Temple at Waco, Gray Lodge paid fifty cents a member from its treasury on 1,403 members. It also paid for six chairs in the new temple, honoring Past Grand Master Peter W. Gray, Gray Lodge itself, Past Grand Master John H. Crooker, and Past Masters J. F. Massey, Edward E. Sawyer and Norman Atkinson.

Albert J. DeLange became Grand Master of Texas in December 1949. New laws required six months after the Master Mason degree before a brother could seek the higher degrees, and two months between degrees. Jonathan Lane of Anson Jones Lodge told how, while billeted in a German home during the war, he found two Masonic squares hidden in a picture frame, kept safe for more than eleven years by the former Junior Warden of a lodge at Darmstadt. On February 27, 1950, Hiram Abiff Collie was raised in Gray Lodge. The Grand Master visited Houston on April 1 with the Glee Club of the Masonic Home and School, the lodge approved the petition for Spring Branch Lodge, and Brother Gus E. Plagens was voted a life membership for outstanding service.