Cyril Edward and Annie Gray Cain Papers

The Cyril Edward and Annie Gray Cain Papers contain materials relating to the education, career, organizational, research, and publication activities, and to the personal affairs of high school teacher, principal, and Mississippi State University faculty member Cyril Edward Cain (1883-1963), and his wife Annie Rebecca Gray Cain (1889-1970), who taught in schools around Mississippi, including the Starkville Municipal Separate School District. Material types contained in the collection include correspondence, literary manuscripts, class notes and school records, genealogical and historical research materials, publications, photographs and other materials. The primary dates of the original manuscript materials in the collection are 1908-1965. Those collection materials dating from 1785-1907 consist primarily of copies of research materials.

Contained in the collection is correspondence among Cain and Gray family members, including letters between Annie and Cyril reflecting their early lives in Jasper and Jackson Counties, Cyril's career as a teacher in Dead Lake, Burns and other towns in Mississippi, and their later lives in Starkville; and letters from Cyril's brother, Methodist minister John Buford Cain, reflecting his ministry in Canton and Moss Point, Mississippi and other towns, his research and publications, and family matters.

Letters among Gray family members reflect the personal, social, and career activities of Annie's mother, Margaret (Roberts) Gray (1870-1939), and her brothers, Mississippi State College graduates, Tilman Barge Gray (1896-1917) and William Levert Gray (1898-1951). Tilman Barge Gray was the first Mississippi A&M College student to lose his life in World War I. Both the Mississippi State University American Legion Post and Gray-Meek Post in Jasper County are named for him. The letters of Natchez resident William LeVert Gray concern his work as an inspector for the State Plant Board of Mississippi and for the Federal Land Bank, Fifth District, and document to some degree conditions in Mississippi during the Depression years. The family correspondence provides some documentation of life in Mississippi during World War I, as well as gives some details of campus life at Mississippi State University. Cyril Cain's datebooks, 1939-1964, contain brief accounts that document both his teaching career and his personal affairs.

The collection also contains correspondence, historical writings and other materials relating to the Cains' genealogical and historical research, primarily for the publication of Four Centuries on the Pascagoula, Flags Over Mississippi, Centennial Red Hill Church, 1837-1937, The Allisons, Cains, Campbells, Gibsons, 1714-1860, and The Carter Letters, 1811-1857. The majority of the subject content in the Genealogy and Historical Research series centers on the history of the Pascagoula River Region of Jackson and George Counties.

Some of the genealogical and research materials were also produced as a part of the Cains' participation in the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Mississippi Genealogical Society, and the Jackson County Historical Society. A separate series is devoted to records of the Cains' organizational activities, but the Cains' genealogical society membership application forms and supporting materials remain with the family research materials.

Other significant subject content is found in correspondence, resolutions and other materials documenting the anti-communist activities of the Sons of the American Revolution and other individuals and organizations during the 1950s; and anti-Communist writings and other materials concerning Summit, Mississippi journalist Mary Dawson Cain, which are contained in the Cain family research materials. In the Love family materials are copies of the manuscript Diary of Thomas Neely Love, M.D., 1818-1855, which gives an account of the formation and military activities of the Lowndes Guards (United States Army, 2nd Mississippi Volunteer Regiment) during the Mexican War, 1846-1847.

The visual materials series contains a small group of photographs, principally of Cain family members and historic sites. The series also includes color and black and white post cards from the correspondence series, primarily of Mississippi scenes.