Robert McCollum Price was born on September 23, 1898 in Wentworth, North Carolina. Price attended a Plattsburgh training camp in the summer of 1918. That September, he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the army, teaching military instruction at New Hampshire College in Durham, New Hampshire until honorably discharged on December 18, 1918. Following World War I, Price became a minister, pastoring Lakewood Methodist Episcopal Church in Durham, and joined the Durham Machine Gun Company of the national guard. He again joined active service during World War II, remaining in the army until he was honorably released in September 1954. He died in Greensboro on July 15, 1967.