Personal Biography

Marshall Gregory has two grown daughters and lives with his wife, poet and children’s book author Valiska Gregory, in Indianapolis. His daughter Melissa Gregory is a professor of Victorian literature and is married to playwright and novelist Eric Pfeffinger. His daughter Holly Gregory is a two-time Emmy award winner for a PBS television show she created for children, and is currently a producer/director/writer for the children’s TV cable network Nickelodeon. Gregory’s West Highland terrier, Lucy, has no degrees, holds no position, and, alas, draws no salary. She does, however, protect the family castle against Dark Plots hatched by back yard squirrels and other contemptible vermin.

There are additional facts about Gregory that you will not find in his CV and that would doubtless surprise his students, but that are nonetheless true . . .

He was born by coal oil lamplight in his grandmother’s farm house and went to various country schools where freshly killed coon, possum, and squirrel were fairly common dinner entrées for his school mates.

He met the woman who was to become his wife when she was seventeen and after many years of marriage still thinks she’s the most beautiful, intelligent, and interesting woman he’s ever met.

His first scholarly publication was accepted by a famous editor who apparently forgot that he had rejected the same manuscript only one week earlier.

He listens to Lyle Lovett, Alison Krauss, Queen, and Black Crowes when he lifts weights, but prefers Beethoven, Mahler, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff when he does his Nordic Track.

He has loved being a father and spouse more than anything else in his life. Teaching runs a very close second.

To put himself through undergraduate school, he was a short order cook at a canning factory, shoveled coal to keep the boilers going at his undergraduate college, scrambled 33 dozen eggs every morning for the kitchen of his college cafeteria, and mixed mortar for the two fastest brick layers in Chicago.

To put himself through graduate school, he graded papers for the world’s largest correspondence high school, and worked as a construction worker, a switchman for the Rock Island Railroad, a steel lancer for Youngstown Steele, and an assistant to a well-known 18th century scholar at the University of Chicago. He also worked as a fireman for the Erie Lackawana Railroad and always waved to children at railroad crossings.

In graduate school he used to leave notes for his wife written in the phonetic alphabet, and he recently took an undergraduate Shakespeare acting class just for fun.

He loved raising bees as a hobby until an accident involving dozens of stings and anaphylactic shock nearly killed him.

His daughters once designed a swing set out of tinkertoys for him to build, but he used such heavy lumber, the actual structure bore an unintended and amusing resemblance to an Elizabethan gallows.

He and his wife spent their honeymoon at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival.

He enjoys developing photographs—the photographs on this website (except for those of Gregory himself) are his and may not be used without his permission. Many thanks to Valiska Gregory for web design and Diane Badgely for website technical assistance.

Stay tuned. More revelations possibly forthcoming. . .

© 2005 Copyright Marshall Gregory