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| It's as though they're waiting for our arrival at the Raney home in Princeton, Indiana, that summer of 1917. Left to right: our grandmother, Mary Raney, standing; son James, wearing a floppy bow, leaning against the post; Whitman to the right of post holding Denny dressed in white; Paul is leaning back against Whitman's knee. The man in the work-shirt sitting on the porch, his son standing on the porch next to him, is Henry Raney, son of Everett Rainey and younger half-brother to our great-grandfather, James Raney, with the mustache, standing next to a sitting Nancy, our great-grandmother. I think Great-aunt Esther (b. 1902) is sitting to the right with her leg crossed. She was 15 that year. The rest are neighbors and Henry's wife. |
Close Calls: the Life of Paul Whitman Raney
by Patrick Raney
Princeton, Indiana – July 1917
Princeton
was a typical Midwestern town in southern Indiana that hot summer of 1917. People
worked hard, had few modern conveniences, but families were close and
supportive. James Samuel Raney, wife
Nancy Ann and daughter Esther lived in an older home fronted by a large front
porch. In a smaller white house nearby, Samuel and Nancy’s son Whitman,
affectionately called “Whitty,” lived with his wife Mary and four young
children, James, Paul, Dennis and baby Louise.
Whitman had recently brought his family from Fredonia, Kansas, where he’d met Mary Smith in 1906 before enlisting in the army. After his tour of duty in Colorado and Utah, he returned to marry her in 1910. Hard-scrabble farming didn’t appeal to Whitman, so he worked at a Standard Oil well in nearby Neodesha and then down near the Oklahoma border at Coffeyville. Mary’s family, the Smiths and Petitjohns, were close and had farmed in Kansas since the 1870’s, but about 1914 Whitman decided to move his family to where his own family lived, back in southern Indiana. A small house near his parents’ home was available for rent. Maybe life would be better there.
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| Paul and James Raney, c. 1914 in Fredonia, Kansas, before the move to Indiana |
His dad,
James Raney, found Whitman work at his place of employment, the Southern
Railroad repair shops, located about two blocks from their homes. With only a second-grade education, James had
little choice beyond working with his hands. He’d abandoned the hard life of
farming to become a machinist, repairing rail cars, a line of work that suited him,
and which he enjoyed. Every morning he and Whitman crossed a wooden bridge over
a nearby creek for the short walk to work.
They returned home for noon dinner. They might not be farm laborers, but
they expected a good-size meal. Preparing meals and other chores kept Nancy and
Mary Raney busy all day. Mary also had babies Denny and then Louise to care
for.
The women’s distractions allowed James,
born in 1911, and Paul, a Valentine’s Day gift to his mother in 1913, the freedom
to roam at will, which they did with abandon.
With an active curiosity, the two boys explored the neighborhood, its
barns, fields, and beyond.
Across
the road from Whitman’s and Mary’s home on Virgil Boulevard the small creek
meandered south through Princeton before curving west to flow into the
Wabash River. The creek with its border
of trees and bushes was a magnet for neighborhood youngsters, a site for building
forts and tree houses. And dams.
One
muggy August day, after filling the wood box to fuel the wood stove for their
mother’s canning, James and Paul hurried off to their favorite spot on the creek, where they'd been constructing a dam at the
mouth of the culvert running under the bridge, hoping to raise the water until it flowed over the
bridge. Wouldn't Dad and Grandpa be surprised when they walked home after work.
As they toiled with its construction, wading
about, collecting stones and sticks, they paid no attention to heavy clouds
scudding across the sky. The wind picked
up and the sky darkened. Had they
looked up, they wouldn’t have known this storm already had dumped a torrent of
rain to the north that collected in basins, swelling rivers and streams. The boys splashed about, intent on their
work, while a deluge raced toward them.
There was
no warning. The boys were squatting in the shallows, adjusting rocks at the
base of their dam when a wall of water hit them. James was tossed aside to land on the muddy
bank, but the force of the water propelled Paul through the culvert beneath the
bridge. At the other end a mesh-work of accumulated limbs and sticks caught him
up, preventing him from drowning.
James
scrambled up the bank, ran across the bridge and into the stream on the other
side, only to be knocked down by rushing water.
He saw Paul trapped under the bridge and fought his way upstream to help
his little brother. The web of limbs and
brush broke and Paul tumbled out, knocking James down. The subsiding flood rolled them about, carrying
them downstream until they managed to crawl onto a muddy bank. They sat quietly until the skies opened to release
the promised Midwestern storm. Already soaked, they jumped and ran laughing
across the street to home.
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| James, Paul and Denny Raney, 1916, Princeton, Indiana |
In 1994, Dad and I stopped in Princeton on our
way to the Rainey/Raney Genealogical Society meeting in Tennessee. We’d brought the photograph taken in 1917 of our family ranged in front of James’s house on
Edgar Street. Arriving at the house, we compared
it to the photograph and were astonished to find that the residence remained unaltered,
the same composition brick on the outside walls, the same wood trim.
Dad
seized the photo, exited the car and crossed the street to knock on the door,
returning disappointed that no one answered. And no one answered when we walked the few feet north to knock on the door
of the little white house on Virgil Boulevard where Dad had lived as a child. It was clearly a letdown for him not to be able share the moment with their occupants.
We
inspected the neighborhood. There were few changes. The bridge over the creek had been upgraded
to a paved surface, although not much wider.
The dark brick buildings that had been railroad car work spaces remained,
unused and boarded up since the mid-1980s, when the Southern Railroad merged with
other railroad lines. For those few moments, though, it was 1917 again.
Trail, British Columbia – May 1920
Louisa
Smith, called Ma by her grandchildren, clutched Paul’s hand in her right and Dennis’ in her left, steering them
to the street. Nine-year-old James danced
ahead in anticipation. She clucked at him
in her French accent to wait, but what little boy can stand still when the
circus is coming to town? Townspeople were
gathering and soon elephants and wild beasts would parade from the depot through town to the large field where the huge tent would go up.
Recently an advance man had passed
through, plastering posters on fences and barns. Workmen shared the news at the
smelter and later at their homes, discussing the coming event around supper tables. In the Raney’s kitchen the sobering fact was that they
just couldn’t afford the tickets to go inside the big top, but the boys could watch
the parade. James and Paul were satisfied
with that. Little Denny understood only that his older brothers were excited.
James darted into the street to glimpse
the head of the parade, and then ran back to report his disappointment that nothing
had appeared. Paul, two years younger, wanted
to see, too, but Ma's iron grip kept him in check. Then someone up the street shouted that the
circus train had derailed and wild animals were loose.
Hearing that, James was off, racing up
the street. Startled, Ma loosened
her grip on Paul, who jerked free to run after him, calling out for his brother to wait
as they charged through a bedlam of shouting families herding youngsters to the
safety of their homes.
Nearing the rail siding, the boys saw men
scurrying about and shouting. From inside several overturned freight cars caged
animals howled and roared. In the noise
and tumult edgy elephants being offloaded to assist in righting the cars
trumpeted while dragging their handlers away from the tracks. Nothing was going well.
James
told Paul to stay put while he scouted out a good vantage point from which to
watch. He ran off, leaving Paul in a
patch of cheat grass, sage brush and weeds.
Being an independent cuss, Paul crept closer to the tracks and circus
cars until a roustabout yelled, “Get the hell out of here before you get hurt!” As though hit by a pebble from a slingshot,
Paul skittered back several yards, running stickers into his bare feet. Now that hurt!
Dropping down, he began pulling thorns from
the sole of his foot. A rustle in the sagebrush made him twist sideways. He saw nothing and returned to picking out the remaining thorns.
More rustling, now directly behind him. Slowly he turned until he was face to face with a large snake’s head, whose forked
tongue flicked in and out of its wide mouth.
Paul and James were used to snakes - blue racers and garter snakes - had
even thrown rocks at rattlesnakes from a distance. But this was no rattler. The head was larger than his dad’s boot. Sucking in his breath, Paul ever so slowly
edged away, imagining the rest of the snake to be a mile long. With that thought, he jumped up and bolted, but not
for home. He raced toward the circus train.
Spotting the roustabout who’d yelled at him, he
squawked, “Hey mister!”
The fellow turned. “I told you to get
your skinny ass out of here!”
“But mister, I found your snake!”
The man surveyed Paul, skeptical. “Where?”
Paul timidly pointed behind him.
The circus worker gave a shrill whistle
and several men ran over. He told them the
kid had found the missing boa constrictor. Paul led the way until they reached the brush, where the posse cautiously scoured
through weeds and sage. And there it was. Two men gripped the snake behind its head and attempted
to lift and pull it. Too heavy for them, they grunted for their buddies to lend a hand. Several took hold of the snake’s long torso, but
made little headway.
Another whistle and other men emerged
from behind disabled train cars. An
authoritative wave brought them running. A few words and more gestures and they
joined the effort of extricating the boa from its new lair.
Seeing its size, Paul’s
eyes grew large. It was
longer than thirteen feet, a length he knew because his first-grade teacher had
shown them in the dirt behind the school that four meters was about thirteen
feet. After marking the measurement, Paul
had taken long strides along it, counting his steps. He was certain the snake was at least that
long. Maybe longer.
The serpentine line of men hauled the huge reptile toward the circus train while Paul watched in awe. The head roustabout turned back to the little
boy and called, “Hey kid, wanna see where Oscar lives? Come on!” Paul grinned and ran to the front of the line. And just like Peter taking the wolf to the zoo, young Paul took the boa back to its cage.
On May 25, 1920, the Christie Circus train derailed in western Canada and some cars were damaged. A few large animals escaped, but all were rounded up and returned to their carriages. The wreck occurred in Cardston, Alberta.
There will be more "close calls" for Paul in future blogs as Pat Raney continues his father's story.
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