Robert Ray Vaughn was born on March 29, 1897 in Ponder, Texas. In 1915, he married Callie Taralie Wilson, and the couple had four sons and one daughter. Callie Wilson passed in 1929, and in 1930 Robert Vaughn married Adaline “Addie” Viola Whitley in 1930, and they had three children. Addie passed away in 1985.

During World War II, Robert Vaughn worked as a riveter and later owned and operated his own nursery from 1946-1951.

A churchman, Robert Vaughn moved to Denton, Texas in 1951, and attended College View Baptist Church. It was around this time, while teaching Sunday School to to children 8 and 9 years of age when he first worked on the biblical teaching charts, which focus on the book of Revelation.

Robert Vaughn probably saw Clarence Larkin’s “Dispensational Truths”,  which was widely distributed amongst evangelical churches in the 1920’s, along with “The Book of Revelations,” also by Clarence Larkin.  It is most likely these that inspired his ideas to create his own teaching charts which were designed for easy display, and with which he took creative liberties and humor in his renditions of revelations, feeling that to hold the children’s interest one had to entertain them.

Robert Ray Vaughn’s pieces survive due to a family member who as an artist saw value in the work and stored for years. It then passed to the next generation. This individual, also an artist, valued not only her Grandfather’s work but also his artistic vision, and allowed them to be exhibited to the public for the first time in at least a generation. Robert Ray Vaughn died on December 29, 1986.