Frank Whitman Raney (1888-1969)

Frank Whitman Raney (1888-1969)

 Our grandfather, Frank Whitman Raney, was born 26 August 1888 on a farm near Princeton, Gibson County, Indiana. 

Gibson County, Indiana

In the 1900 census (all 1890 Federal censuses were destroyed in a fire), he appears as Whitman Raney, age 12, with his father James and mother Nancy (Dougan) Raney. James is listed as owning his farm. Frank's younger brother Claude had died, so now Frank was an only child. His sister Laura Esther would be born in 1902.

Frank Whitman Raney and brother Claude, bef. 1900

During his retirement years from the Northern Pacific RR, Frank enjoyed puttering in his vegetable garden and growing roses, but he had never liked farm work.  There might have been a shotgun wedding while a teenager. Uncle Paul Raney and son Pat said they found evidence of it on a trip back to Princeton, but what I located on Ancestry.com was a marriage in neighboring Pike County, Indiana, dated 9 Aug 1902, between W. Frank Rainey (b. 1876) and Estella B. Armstrong (b. 1878). They had three daughters and are in the 1920 census. Whether Frank ran off because his dad (he always called James Raney "Dad") was a tough taskmaster or because he regretted being married, he left Indiana in 1906 and wound up in Fredonia, Wilson County, Kansas, near the Oklahoma border, working at its glass factory. 

Wilson County, Kansas

 

Mr. Lentes, the glass factory owner or manager took him to the boarding house run by the Smith family  - Eugene, Louise, Gus, Mary and Laura. [They rented their original farm, but would rent another in 1909 and give up the boarding house.] 

Mary on left, Laura on right, with cousin Carl Pettyjohn

Frank recalled first seeing Mary crossing the street in a red dress.  She claimed in later letters to him that she'd fallen in love with him during the short time he lived with them. Apparently, so did her  younger sister, Laura.  

Gus, Laura, Louise and Eugene Smith

Frank was going by Whitman - "Whitty" for short, which is what our grandmother called him for the rest of his life. His stay in Fredonia was brief; he left on 26 November 1906 to join the United States Army, claiming when he filled out his 3-year enlistment papers that he was born in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Was this to avoid being found by his wife or by his father?.  After basic training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, he was assigned to the 21st Infantry at Fort Logan, Colorado, just south of  Denver. Later he was transferred to Fort Douglas, Utah.

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This photograph was taken toward the end of August 1908 at temporary Camp Emmet Crawford between Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, in an area called the Vedauwoo.  His infantry unit was on joint maneuvers with a cavalry unit from Fort F.E. Warren in Cheyenne. He must have marked the photo with an X before sending it to Mary in Kansas. They wrote  each other often. According to a contemporary issue of the Laramie Boomerang newspaper, the Fort Logan soldiers had come north from Fort Logan by train to Ft. Collins, Colorado, and from there had marched the 59 miles to Laramie and then east about 20 miles into this rugged area. [When the U. of Wyoming Cowboys football team plays the Colorado State Rams, each ROTC unit runs from its perspective university to a nearly midway point at the state line to exchange the "Bronze Boot trophy." Funny how distances decrease with the years.]  The army could have brought the soldiers all the way by train (Union Pacific), but that was too easy.

The Vedauwoo - a great recreation area

 

Whitman wrote to Mary from camp on 22 August, 1908, "My Dearest Beloved . . .Sweetheart we are in camp now and have some very hard work before us. We had to walk two hundred and forty miles before we got in camp. We had some very tuff (sic) days of it where we went to cross the Rocky Mountains. [W]e went through rain, hail and snow and it was oh very cold but is much better now, Dearest. We have to the fifteenth of September to complete this and I hope we will be through before then. Say Darling it wont (sic) be very long until I will get to come home to you and then how happy I will be. When I return it will be something grand. I wish that time was here dont [sic] you darling. . ."  Like most soldiers, he was prone to exaggeration to impress his girl.  He wrote this letter at camp with a purple pencil (or it's turned purple over the last 108 years). Often at Ft. Logan he wrote with a fountain pen. With only an 8th grade education, he still had a Spencerian hand. Note the flourishes on this blue envelope. [My mother Geneva tore off all the stamps on their letters during a school stamp drive in the 1930s]

Whitman was quite a storyteller.  He wrote to Mary of hair-raising adventures, recounting how his unit hunted bank robbers across the Wyoming prairie. After I read that letter some years back while living in Laramie, I went to the library and found the newspaper article about the bank robbery in Laramie and the search for the robbers. It was a long article and I suspect our grandfather read it himself while out on maneuvers.  His unit may have been told to be on the lookout, but for Mary he made it his personal adventure.

Whitman wrote of going off on rides with his friend who had an auto and sent Mary this photo. I assume hetook the wheel for the photograph.

 

Another tale he wrote Mary was  of his imminent embarkation to the Philippines and that he wouldn't be in touch for a while. About this time he must have gone AWOL from Fort Logan to enjoy the good life of Denver.  Some time later he wrote that he'd returned from the Philippines.  He always told us that he'd been in the Insurrection of the Philippines, but that took place before he left Indiana. The Moro War was ongoing on Mindanao, with a battle in 1906, and I suspect he heard stories from fellow soldiers who'd been there or read accounts in the newspaper. Once told me a gruesome tale about an attack in which his best friend was macheted by Moros. He took  his dislike of Filipinos too far one Thanksgiving in the 1950s by refusing to sit at his son Denny's and wife Junice's table because they'd invited the Filipino students living on the 3rd floor of their house. He finally did sit, but sulked throughout the meal (I received this story third-hand years ago).

After three years in the service Whitman returned to Fredonia in the spring of 1909, converted from Baptist to Catholic, and married Mary Smith in June of 1910. On their wedding night, Mary's younger sister Laura sat outside their bedroom door and wept all night. Some wedding night! Years later, up at Laura's and her brother Gus's farm outside Addy, Washington, Mary Agnes (still a girl) came to the open doorway to get a drink to find her father embracing and kissing Aunt Laura, who had never married. Perhaps Whitman was just being kind.

Don't get me wrong. I was very fond of our grandfather, and Grandma loved him dearly.  In my next blog, I'll get on with Frank Whiteman's and Mary's story.