This child was born in the Elijah Shanklin and Beedie Frances (Archer) McClellan home in the Hill Community, Coleman County, Texas near Gouldbusk, Texas on April 6, 1909. He was the fifth child born into this family. He lived only to be four years old. His death occurred on September 8, 1913.

His death occurred after Beedie Frances (Archer) McClellan took him, Anna Jewel, his six year old sister, Clyde Newton, his three year old brother with her to Midlothian, Texas to visit her mother and the children’s maternal grandmother, Mary Frances Archer. “We went by train and Ray lived only a short time after the trip,” is the report of Anna Jewel (McClellan) McMinn in her memories, titled: The E.S. McClellan Family (1983). She also reports that her mother, Beedie Frances (Archer) McClellan thought “the illness that killed Willie Ray was probably a severe case of appendicitis or something similar.”