Seth M. Kerby

Seth M. Kerby was born at Rockdale, Texas, on March 14, 1894, the son of Marion Sylvester and Sarah Elizabeth Kerby. He attended Heights High School in Houston and spent two years at Baylor University before becoming a licensed public accountant. He enlisted in the Texas National Guard on July 4, 1916, served on the Mexican border, and went overseas to France in July 1918 as a Sergeant First Class with the 36th Division, returning home in June 1919.

He was Assistant Cashier of the State National Bank of Houston when he joined Gray Lodge. He received his degrees in 1921: the Entered Apprentice on October 10, the Fellowcraft on November 21, and the Master Mason degree on December 31. Soon after, Worshipful Master Norman Atkinson gathered 40 or 50 Brethren to form the Magnolia Investment Company, with Brother Kerby as Secretary-Treasurer. “I have never belonged to any business organization where it was such a pleasure with nothing but brother Masons,” he recalled, though the Depression ended the venture in the early 1930s.

After serving as Junior and Senior Deacon, he was elected Junior Warden in 1925 and then Senior Warden. He was installed as the 56th Master in a public installation in 1927, with Norman Atkinson installing and Horace L. Walling assisting, to music by Guy “Fatty” Martin’s orchestra and a KPRC singer known as the “Sweetheart of the Air.”

His year looked after the lodge’s members. The by-laws were amended to grant life membership after twenty-five consecutive years, and the lodge resolved that no Brother would be suspended for unpaid dues until the Secretary had reported it and, if needed, a committee had looked into his circumstances. In July 1927 the lodge buried Past Master Marcus S. Clark, the only Master of Gray to serve two full terms. In September Houston Masons heard Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, the Texas-born author of The Builders, at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. Houston was growing fast, with skyscrapers going up across downtown.

He became a Royal Arch and Council Mason, and in 1944 a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner of Arabia Temple, where he was a charter member and officer of the Arabia Temple Chanters. In 1953 he moved to California, where he worked as an accountant until 1960, traveled widely, and sang in the choir of Pilgrim Congregational Church in Oceanside. He married Florence LaRose in 1944; her son Sidney LaRose also became a member of Gray Lodge. In 1970 he looked forward to receiving his Fifty-Year Service Award in 1971.