Roy was born at home on Laurel Street in Shreveport, Louisiana. When his father died his mother, Gladys Othello Johnson, married John H. Lenz, who lived in Galveston. Roy moved back and forth, staying with his grandmother in Shreveport and then with his mother and stepfather in Galveston. In Shreveport, he worked at several jobs including a soda jerk at Peyton's Drugstore and Broadmoor Drug. He cut grass, held a paper route, ushered at the Strand Theater, and worked for the telegraph. While in Galveston, he worked on oil tankers as a mess cook, as well as on harbor tugs. Roy was in Galveston when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He joined the U.S. Navy when he was only fourteen. Documents from his previous civilian work aboard oil tankers indicated he was eighteen. Roy was sent to boot camp in San Diego in September of 1942. Because of his previous sea duty, he attended only about half the boot camp training before he shipped out. He spent five days guarding military prisoners at Terminal Island. He then was sent to Portland, Oregon where he went aboard PC 1081, a patrol craft that escorted served submarines coming out of Seattle. He served at Pearl Harbor, also on escort duty and "sub chasing," and then went to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. He transferred to a yard mine sweep, YMS 126 at Dutch Harbor, sailing from there to Attu and Kiska, and then to the Philippines where he installed torpedo and sub nets. Roy returned to the states, arriving in Seattle on September 11, 1945. He was discharged from the Navy at age eighteen, but still had to register for the draft. Roy returned to Shreveport to work for the telephone company. He also sang with a big band--Roland Grier and his orchestra at the Washington Youree Hotel. He opened his own business, Lee Mac Installation and Window Company. In August of 1947 he married Betty Jean McInturf, who passed away in 1990. In 1993 he married Linda Pearl Lewis. Roy has four daughters, including a stepdaughter, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.