Close Calls: The Life of Paul Whitman Raney, Part II, by Patrick Raney

      The smelter in Trail, British Columbia, provided only seasonal work and so Whitman, now calling himself Frank Raney, made a couple of trips down to Spokane in the spring of 1920 with his brother-in-law Gusta Smith to look for work. The family remained in Trail, destitute, Mary writing, extolling him to send money, describing having little food and no shoes for the children. Frank wrote back of his trip to Natatorium Park and other sights, reminding her to borrow from “the folks.”  Finally, in the summer, Frank sent for them or returned to escort them across the international border to their new home.

      In the meantime, Gus had negotiated a lease on a farm west of Spokane near Deep Creek Canyon that would accommodate the entire family, including his parents, Eugene and Louisa Smith, and his sister Laura.  Some six miles from Spokane, the farm lay on sloping land ideal for wheat farming, but a wagon and horses would be their only transportation.  

       Mary Agnes was born at home on June 12^th, 1921. A few days later, with their mother’s attention focused on the new baby, James, Paul and Dennis hurried to finish their chores, for there were trees to climb and an expedition planned down to Deep Creek to catch frogs. 

       The morning’s excitement over, after noon dinner the boys rested in the shade until James' gaze fastened on the large hay rake tilted against the barn, one large iron-rimmed wooden wheel rising far enough off the ground to be freely turned. Soon the boys were spinning the wheel as fast as they could.  They pegged rocks through rotating spokes until James decided it would be more fun to actually ride the wheel.  Wedging his feet between spokes and gripping the rim, he ordered Paul and Dennis to give the wheel a turn. Around he went.  

       When it was Paul’s turn, he climbed on, unaware the hay rake had shifted.  As he revolved, it shifted again, putting his head on a trajectory toward the ground and a protruding strand of wire.  It ripped across Paul’s throat and he fell in the dirt, screaming, while James and Dennis stared numbly at blood gushing from his neck. 

       Ma Smith heard that scream. About five-feet-tall, but strong, she ran from the house to the barn, swept Paul into her arms and tried to staunch the bleeding wound with her apron.

       With James and Denny trailing behind, fearful of the scolding they’d get for getting “Pauley” hurt, she carried him to the house and laid him on the kitchen table. The bleeding had diminished, but remained worrisome.

Louisa Petitjohn Smith

      Hearing the commotion, Mary Raney carried her newborn into the kitchen to see her 2^nd son covered in blood.  Ma took charge, ordering Mary to make a poultice from some herbs she kept in the kitchen.  With no way of transporting Paul into Spokane to a doctor, she had to rely on old fashion medicine learned from her French mother.  Her examination revealed that no critical blood vessels were severed, and with careful work, she and Mary stopped the bleeding. Afterward, they put Paul on the davenport in the sitting room. 

      James, Dennis and little sister, Louise, later tiptoed in, whispering to one another. Paul opened his eyes and James murmured, “Pauley, are you all right?”  

       Paul gave a weak grin and nodded.  

       Horror in his voice, Dennis gasped, “Ma said you're gonna die.  Don’t die, Pauley!”  

       In a raspy voice, Paul answered, “I won’t, guys.” 

       Black eyes snapping, Ma whisked the children from the room, but her scolding was mild.  Everyone was thankful it had been only a close call.

         Tragically, in mid-August James stepped bare-foot on a strip of barbed wire in the chicken yard.  A normal ten-year-old with things to do and places to explore, he paid little attention to it. By September, Mary Raney and baby Mary Agnes were hospitalized with typhoid fever.  James’ wound festered and by the time a doctor examined it, blood poisoning had set in.  He was hospitalized, but with antibiotics not yet available, he died at age ten on September 28, 1921.

 

Last photograph of James Raney, then age 9.

         Paul was especially devastated. James was his hero and best friend. So poor, the family couldn’t afford to bury James at Greenwood cemetery in Spokane, he was buried to the north of the cemetery, in a potter’s field.  Years later, after Mary Agnes and Omer “Red” Charbonneau married, Red made a concrete headstone for the grave.  He colored it pink and embedded in the wet stone the crucifix Mary Agnes received at her Confirmation.  A thief later pried out the crucifix.  On a happier note, the potter’s field was incorporated into the cemetery proper and the space became the burial site for many babies and young children.

                                    Interlude – 1920’s

         There were periods of calm in Paul’s life.  After James’ death, the family moved from the farm. In 1923, Frank W. Raney appears in the Spokane City Directory at N. 705 Madison. It was perhaps during this residence that he was a trolley car conductor, from which he was fired for having an accident or insulting a passenger (depending on the family source). After Frank got work at the Northern Pacific shops in Yardley, he moved his family to a farmhouse without electricity or plumbing on East Broadway on the Spokane prairie, within walking distance of his job.  He was employed there the remainder of his working life as a locomotive carpenter.

        Mary Raney’s Smith family lived across the field until the elder Smiths passed away (Eugene in 1928 and Louisa in November 1931). Gus and Laura, who never married, used their share of Louisa’s life insurance to buy a farm near Addy, Washington, on November 19, 1932 for $1400.00. The terms were to complete the sale by 1940 by paying about $200.00 per year, but Gus paid it off in 1936. With Mary’s share of the insurance, Frank Raney purchased a used automobile that seldom ran.  

         During the summer Paul and Dennis picked strawberries, raspberries, beans and other produce. While attending junior high at Chief Gary School, Paul helped the family by raising rabbits, harvesting and dressing two or three twice a week. Wrapping them in butcher paper, he transported them in a leather satchel on the trolley downtown, where he sold them to the head chef of the posh Davenport Hotel.  Knowing he had to get the best price, Paul became a seasoned negotiator.

        He attended West Valley High School but didn’t graduate, bad economic times forcing him to leave school to go to work. But he made friends at St. Pascal’s Catholic Church, where he met Fred Shelton, his sister Virginia, who became a Holy Names nun, Fran Droughter, Rita Fanning and others.  Their entertainment was producing musicals and plays.  Brother Denny brought his friend, George Bernhardt, who would one day become Paul’s brother-in-law.

       Paul and a few chums joined the National Guard to learn aerial photography, a skill never used in later life, but which delighted him at the time.

It's likely this photograph of Frank, Mary and Geneva Raney at Felts Field in Spokane was taken on a Sunday by Paul

       On a trip to Spokane to watch Denny’s grandson, Tim Kubinski, pitch for the Salem A League team (an affiliate of the Oakland A’s), Dad and I rented a room at a Best Western Motel on East Sprague Avenue.  Dad identified it as being on the property once occupied by a house the Raneys lived in before Frank and Mary bought the house on Nora in 1935. Where there had been prairie, now warehouses and storage covered a large industrialized area.

   

   Soon, Paul would face more perils.