Mr. Grady Spruce

Grady Spruce History

Henry (H.) Grady Spruce was born on November 20, 1889, in Omen, an unincorporated community in Smith County in east Texas. He came to Dallas in 1924 to serve as Boys’ Work Secretary of the YMCA, and was associate secretary in charge of endowment from 1945 until his retirement in 1952.

He earned degrees from Southern Methodist University and the University of Chicago, and for 25 years served the Dallas Independent School District as a teacher, coach, and athletic director.

A significant figure in Dallas athletics and a champion for youth sports, he also served as the president of the Texas High School Coaches Association. 

For 25 years, he served as summer camp director of Camp Crockett, opened near Granbury in 1922 by the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. Camp Crockett operated in that location until World War II, when it moved to Bachman Lake on Dallas. Its successor, Camp Grady Spruce on Possum Kingdom Lake, was named after Mr. Spruce, and opened for its first session in June, 1949. He served as its director for the new camp’s first summer.

After H. Grady Spruce’s retirement, he became director of the Community Guidance Service. He was a Mason and member of the First Methodist Church of Dallas. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Southwest Council of the YMCA in 1956 for his “faithful service and outstanding leadership to the YMCA.”

He died April 30, 1960, in Dallas at the age of 70, having devoted a career total of 35 years to YMCA youth programs with 25 of them as director of Camp Crockett and having served as a civic leader in the Dallas community for many decades. His survivors included his wife Ivy Estelle Houston Spruce, whom he had married in 1917, and two daughters, Margaret (later Griffith) and Bettylu (later Cheatham).

Pallbearers included Ray Bean, Hugh L. Steger, John P. Green, Jack Lallier, George J. Fix Jr. and George C. McGee. Honorary pallbearers were the Camp Grady Spruce board of management, members of the Dallas Rotary Club and the Men’s Bible Class of First Methodist Church, trustees of the Community Guidance Service and secretaries of the YMCA. He was buried at Grove Hill Memoriual Park.

H. Grady Spruce High School, in the Pleasant Grove area of the D/FW metroplex, was named after him when it was built in 1962. H. Grady Spruce is still remembered for his mentoring of many young men who became leaders in the D/FW metroplex and business community.