sentences:  Staples was born at Martinsville, Virginia in 1885 to Abram Penn Staples (1858–1913), a prominent Virginia lawyer and his wife.His grandfather, Samuel Granville Staples, was the elected clerk of the Circuit Court of Patrick County, Virginia and had signed the Articles of Secession in 1861.His uncle, Waller Redd Staples sat of the Virginia Court of Appeals from 1870–1881 and for three of those years also on the faculty of the Washington and Lee University School of Law.