Leverette B. "Lefty" Gregory, Jr. was born August 20, 1928 and died July 8, 2015. Although born in Petersburg, he often visited his grandparents in Oklahoma during his youth. By his sixteenth birthday, he had traveled with his show business family over much of the continental United States. With early training as a gunsmith, he became an expert marksman, weapons expert and an inventor with a firearms patent.
He was a "life-educated" archaeologist, inventor and artist and Founding Director and President of the Virginia Foundation for Archaeological Research, Inc. Actively involved in Virginia archaeology since the nineteen-sixties, he discovered and excavated many Virginia colonial and aboriginal sites, including those at Flowerdew Hundred, Maycock's Plantation, Weyanoke Old Town, Claremont Manor and Footeball Quarter Creek Plantation.
Mr. Gregory's artwork included photography, graphic arts, ceramics and wood and bronze sculpture. It has been displayed and sold at Decker Studios, the Chesapeake Bay Gallery in Norfolk and the Miles B. Carpenter Museum in Waverly, Virginia. Most of his work is in private collections. He was pre-deceased by his parents, Leverette Boothe and Eunice Harper Gregory, and his sisters, Joyce, Margaret and Gloria Gregory.
He is survived by his wife, Eve Stein Gregory, children, Leverette B. Gregory III, Teresa E. Gregory, and Rob D. Gregory, grandsons, Jonathan, Jason and Adam Gregory, great-grandson, Brandon Gregory and other family and friends.