Glimpses of World War II Florida

I’ve been immersed in learning about World War II from my father-in-law’s perspective for the past three years. 

Jay, a B-25 bomber pilot who served in the South Pacific during the last year of the War, has been dictating his memories of those times and I have been editing them into a book.  More than any big overview of the War, I have enjoyed the little details he’s told me about:  like the fact that the nickname for corned beef in tin cans was “bully beef” and how he and his squadron buddies became sick of eating it.  And when the war was over, many servicemen, including my father-in-law, went to a base in Miami Beach to be reassigned or separated from their military duties.

Then, just this week, I came across three letters that my grandmother, Maude Rankin, wrote to my grandfather, Harry, during the winter of 1943.  They were tucked inside a dark brown folder with the return address of “Clerk of Courts, Fayette County, Washington C.H., - Ohio;” not unusual as my grandfather was judge of the Common Pleas court at that time. 

Maude was staying at the Hotel Normandy Isle on Miami Beach with friends.  My grandfather’s work and his position on the War Bond committee in Fayette County prevented him from going with her.  The two images above are from the stationery she used.  I love the ‘Old Florida’ style and the various planes including bombers, fighters and tankers. 

She shares her glimpses of World War II with him:

February 13, 1943

 … We see the Goodyear Blimp way out over the ocean patrolling every day up and down.  A few days ago a huge convoy of soldiers and equipment left Key West for Africa.  Someone here in the hotel saw them go.  The Government has taken over Key West and fixed it up, and has made it a port of embarkation.(sic)  The Biltmore hotel over at Coral Gables, remember we went in with the Junks one time? has been made a Gov’t hospital and they are flying the wounded in there from Africa.  The big transport planes come in and land on the golf course.  Each plan has a doctor and 2 or 3 nurses.

February 15, 1943

 … We have a French woman rooming next to us.  She and her husband left Paris when the Germans took over.  She and her husband got separated and didn’t find each other for 3 months and then located each other through newspaper advertisements.  The Germans took everything they had, their home and all, allowed them only what they could carry.  They are in Minnesota now, but she has been having pneumonia and he sent her down here to get well.  She is lonely and enjoys talking to us.

What I love about these letters is that they are an intimate glimpse into those world events through one person’s eyes.  Can you imagine planes landing on the golf course at a luxury resort today?  I try to. 

As with my father-in-law’s memories, I find that sometimes they are more powerful and profound than anything any expert or scholar could tell me.  Perhaps I learn more because these little ‘tidbits’ spur my already strong curiosity on to further research.   I did want to know - just what effect did World War II have on Florida?  

Perhaps the most dramatic impact of the war on Florida was the many military bases established throughout the state.  The tremendous migration of military personnel into the area took place along with civilian workers who came to work in the various camps and bases increasing the population by over 40%.   By 1943 approximately 172 military installations of varying sizes were in existence in Florida, compared to only eight in 1940.   This military expansion set the stage for Florida’s continued growth after the War as a tourist and retirement mecca.

One of My Dad's Favorite Things: Locomotive No. 2776 at Eyman Park



Locmotive No. 2776 at Eyman Park
Photo by Senath Rankin, 2010


Almost thirty years before Julie Andrews made the phrase popular with the song she sang in The Sound of Music, my Dad, Richard Post Rankin, put together a photo album he titled, “My Favorite Things.”

Dad was an Ohio State law school student in 1937 and an avid photographer, and in this album of his own photographs he captured three things: planes, trains and Ohio State football.

(Oh! And just for good measure, he added a few shots of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, as she appeared on the Palace Theatre stage with her fans of feathers. But that really is another story!)

It’s hard for me to say which one of these things he loved the most. Dad was a pilot and part owner of a private plane. He attended all of the home and many away games of the Ohio State football team, from his student days until his death in 1971, and some of my happiest and strongest memories of him have something to do with OSU football.

But today, September 16th, is the 50th anniversary of the dedication of Locomotive No. 2776 in Eyman Park. And this blog post is about commemorating Dad’s love of trains and specifically how this man’s passion was the impetus behind No. 2776 finding its final home in Washington Court House.

In a 1990’s article in the Columbus Dispatch about restoration efforts for No. 2776, reporter Don Baird wrote that one day Dad called Earl Dunaway, who worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, to ask if an old locomotive he’d seen at a Columbus railroad yard could be secured for Eyman Park. And Dunaway is quoted as saying, “When they released that thing to Washington Court House, I caught all kinds of h-e-double-l from railroaders in Columbus.” They were upset because they hoped Engine No. 2776 would end up on display in Goodale Park.

The dedication for No. 2776 (Friday, September 16, 1960 at 2 p.m.) was considered by many to be the signature event during the weeklong 1960 Sesquicentennial celebration in Fayette County. As emcee for the dedication, Dad said, “It would be impossible to thank everyone who assisted in securing the locomotive and placing it in the park.”

Here’s thanks to you, Dad, for sharing one of your favorite things with the whole county.

I would love to have readers post their memories of the train being moved into Eyman Park: how temporary tracks were built from the regular railroad tracks across the street and into the park to move the engine into its present location; any memories or photos from the dedication ceremony; or photos of the train.

1976 Tour Stop #1 - The Court House

Judge Harry Rankin
Photo property of Senath Rankin

It's the county's icon.  The center of the city.  The reason that the town of Washington evolved into being called Washington Court House: to distinguish it from another Ohio town by the same name.  When the four SCOPS/Fayette County Historical Society members organized a tour of landmarks around the county, to commemorate the country's Bicentennial in 1976, they started off here. 

But in their handout they don't have any comments about the court house.  They simply wrote that once the tour guests were inside the building, its history would be told.  So I can only speculate that they viewed the famous murals, discussed the various offices housed there and most likely toured the court room.

As I thought about what I could write that would anything new to the history of this building, I realized it would have to be something personal.  And, to me and my family, the court house was my grandfather's office. 

Harry Rankin was appointed by Governor Cooper to be the judge of Common Pleas on February 1, 1930 and held the office until his sudden death in April 1953.  This photo is pretty close, or may be identical, to the one that still hangs in the court room.

Before he was judge he was in private practice with his father, Lee Rankin. The offices of Rankin & Rankin were located on the second floor across the street at 107 1/2 Court Street. He also served two terms as City Solicitor and two terms as County Prosecutor.

In his first few months in office, Harry was faced with presiding over the liquidation of many banks that had failed in the county following the stock market crash of 1929.   One of his first court dockets also listed cases involving bootleggers and a domestic dispute.  His decisions ran the gamut from custody battles to bankruptcies to applying the death penalty.  

In his obituary, which was on the front page of the Record-Herald on May 1, 1943, it stated that his record as judge was remarkable in that only one of his cases in 23 years was overturned by a higher court.   His career was also praised for the cases which established legal precedents in Ohio law; notably the triple murder case of James Collett in 1945.

One of my strongest memories of the court house happened when I was a 7th grader at Eber School. 

Photo by Senath Rankin, September 2010

I had decided to create my own field trip.  I went home one day and told my father that I was bored and asked if there was a trial going on that I could observe.  He told me there was but that I would probably be bored sitting in the gallery. 

Being the outspoken girl I was, I replied, "Well, not as bored as I am in school right now!" 

So, in a day or two Dad drove me to Eber and waited while I ran in to give my teacher, Mrs. Wilson, an excuse note.  I ran back to the car and off we went to town.  At that time Dad's office was across the alley from the court house; one he shared with  his partner, Rollo Marchant.  (138 East Court Street now part of Advantage Bank). I was familiar with the court house and he had no problem sending me off on my own.

I don't recall the trial I watched that day; it wasn't that memorable.  But I do remember, very vividly, looking at my grandfather's portrait hanging behind the bench and wishing I'd had the chance to know him.

Harry, (or Papo as the family called him) died the year before I was born.  But I always enjoyed hearing stories about his ironic sense of humor (which my father inherited); how many people still referred to him as "the judge" long after his death; and how well respected he was in his profession. 

The court house has been renovated and an observance is planned this month. 

   

Fayette County Fair

In the history pamphlet published in 1953 for Ohio's Sesqui-centennial, the Fayette County committee researched the beginning of the county's fair. 

They wrote that the original fairground was located on the east side of the city in 1859.   After the grounds were no longer used for fairs, shows and circuses were held there including 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" with William F. Cody and Annie Oakley. 

In 1886 a new fair was begun on the present location and was held Tuesday through Saturday, October 5-9 that year.

This postcard shows the fairgrounds in 1909.  My grandmother, Maude Post Rankin, identifies herself and friend, Bertha Briggs, in the foreground towards the left under the black umbrella. 

The 1953 history identifies three main buildings on the grounds: the Grand Stand, the Art Hall, and the Fruit Hall and that only the Grand Stand remained by that year. 

The building in the left background is not known to me but perhaps to another reader.  Please leave your comment if you can identify this building.

And good luck to this year's exhibitors!!

http://www.fayettecoagsociety.com/

The 1976 Tour of Fayette County

In 1976 four members of the South Central Ohio Preservation Society* organized a tour of Fayette County homes and landmarks. They borrowed a bus from the Boy Scouts and headed out to show 40 locations to those who signed up to join them.

Those four people were  B.E. Kelley, Kenneth Craig, George Robinson and my mother, Jane Rankin. **

I knew them all, some better than others, and I can imagine them that day as the most entertaining tour guides, telling anecdotes and answering questions from their vast, collective knowledge. They handed out a listing of the tour sites and a hand-drawn map (shown above) with comments; in some cases detailed and in others just a short note about each stop along the route that they had worked together to create.

They started at the court house, of course. They ended up at the Fayette County Museum where guests were served cider and cookies. They looked at homes and cemeteries. Their notes say they stopped at the last remnants of an old toll house (sadly not marked on the map), an old barn (also not marked), a schoolhouse converted into a motel, and pointed to locations where structures were long gone such as the double covered bridge that was torn down in the 1930’s.

I plan on re-tracing their tour route to see if I can find all their landmarks and in future postings will list all 40 tour stops. Please add your comments about these or any sites you feel should be part of a tour of Fayette County landmarks.

If you have old photos that you would like to have posted on this blog, please e-mail your submission to fayettehistory@gmail.com.




*Founded in 1966, the mission of SCOPS is to preserve the natural and cultural history in the South Central Ohio area.


** At the time, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Craig and Mr. Robinson were Fayette County Historical Society board members and my mother would also later become a board member. However, for this tour, it appears they were organizing this tour as a SCOPS project.

Happy Independence Day 2010

This photo of my grandfather Rankin is from the June 1902 issue of the Washington High School literary publication, the Argus. 

That year Harry was a senior, editor-in-chief of the Argus, and member of the track and debate teams.

His contribution to the Argus was a long political and social essay on the rise and fall of various countries concluding with his fervently felt patriotism:

" ... Courage in war, and a love of personal freedom have always been a noticeable characteristic of the American people and this alone has been her dream.  It was germinated by oppression, cherished by the liberty-loving people, rocked in the Mayflower and firmly planted on the stern bosom of Plymouth Rock. 

We may search the pages of ancient history; we may study the motives of contemporaries, we may prophesy the future of any nation and we will fail to find any with higher ideals, with nobler efforts or with a brighter future than those of the United States, and her dream is Freedom!"

The Revolutionary Soldiers Buried in Fayette County (Part 2)

  

In Part 1 of this story (see post from May), I wrote about finding a script my grandmother, Maude Rankin, wrote for a segment of a weekly broadcast on radio station WCHO which was given by members of the Fayette County Ohio Sesquicentennial Committee, possibly in 1952.

In this script she laid out the case for wanting to commemorate the Revolutionary War Soldiers buried in Fayette County including the thought that had gone into potentially marking each soldiers' grave.  But given a number of obstacles, which I re-counted in that earlier post, it was concluded that a plaque should be placed in the court house with all of the men's names that could be identified.  

In the second half of her radio talk, she appealed to members of the community:

"Now we are anxious that NO name be left OFF this plaque that should be on it. Over a period of years Mrs. Max Dice has been compiling a list of the Soldiers of the Revolution who lived in Fayette County, and in recent years she has been able to add more names through our research.“

These are the names that the Committee was still researching at that time:

    

     William Whicker          Buch Pendleton          Caleb Taylor

     Thomas Crouch            Drury Ragsdale           Jacob Coons

     William Mahy              Jesse Britton                Thomas Jones            

     James Kious                  Joseph Vance               John Graham

     William Faulkner        Abraham Colaw

    

And I find this to be one of the most interesting comments my grandmother made:

“When Mr. George Gossard was Superintendent of the Washington Cemetery he gave us the names of Joseph Bloomer, Abraham Payne and “Boss” or Ross Bryant. The latter is buried on the lot of Joseph Bell, as Mr. Bell said he did not want a soldier of the Revolution to lie in Potter’s Field.”

She concluded that week’s radio address:

"… Any of my listeners who may have knowledge of one or more of these men will be doing us a favor by sending that information to Mrs. Dice, Miss Elizabeth Johnson at the library or myself. You will be helping to insure that no name is left off the plaque that should be on it.”

This joint effort by the D.A.R. and the Ohio Sesquicentennial Committee and others resulted in the plaque, pictured above, being located outside the present-day probate court office.

I would be very interested to gather more information from anyone who knows about these weekly radio addresses.

Please leave your questions or comments.

Preserving Family History

Although this post is not exclusively about Fayette County, I think it could be of interest to anyone thinking about how to preserve family history.


In the past four years I've had to make a lot of decisions.  From heirlooms to trinkets:  what do I do with all the family items I've inherited?

Some choices are easy and obvious.  I've donated many out-of-print research books to the genealogy department at the Carnegie Library.  Other more personal items have a natural new 'home' with another family member.  I still have hundreds of such decisions ahead of me.

In the fall of 2009 I decided to tour the newly renovated Thompson Library on the Ohio State University campus. I’d read about it in the Dispatch and decided to explore. It’s an amazing building.

I didn’t go there thinking I would find a place to donate some family history. But that’s exactly what happened.

One of the library’s features is an exhibit space on the 2nd floor where artifacts from the university’s various collections can be showcased. As I walked around I saw boots and a suit John Glenn wore on one of his space missions next to couture dresses; an elaborately decorated kimono and ancient manuscripts.

I also saw an item or two from the Starling Medical College. Next to the items was a note indicating that these were from the Medical Heritage Center collection at OSU. I’d never heard of it before but I was intrigued.

As I stood there, those items brought back to mind the tragic story of my great grandfather, William St. Patrick Kellough.

Starling Medical College* (which was located in downtown Columbus where Grant Medical Center is now) was the precursor to the Ohio State University Medical Center. William St. Patrick Kellough (Willie as his family and friends called him) was an almost-28-year-old junior at Starling Medical College in 1897 when he contracted typhoid fever. His wife, Bertha (Nancy Bertha Morain Kellough), had recently recovered from it, but his illness was more severe and progressed rapidly. He was treated at St. Francis Hospital by the doctors who were also his professors. He died there on March 12, 1897, the day before my maternal grandmother, Senath (his only child) turned one.

200 of the faculty and his fellow classmates at Starling/St. Francis accompanied his coffin to Union Depot in Columbus and some stayed with him to his home in Mount Sterling for the funeral and interment at Bethel Cemetery outside of Mount Sterling where his parents, Asenath and John Kellough, are also buried.

The exhibit had intrigued me so when I got home I checked out the Medical Heritage Center Web site:
http://mhc.med.ohio-state.edu

The Medical Heritage Center recognizes and celebrates historical health and medical personalities and events; collects, displays and archives artifacts; provides a venue for historical medical research; and supports medical history education.

Occupying the 5th floor of the Prior Health Sciences Library at The Ohio State University, the Center also serves as the repository of data, artifacts, and historical information relating to the health and medical education and the medical profession in central Ohio.

I e-mailed the curator. I wondered if my great grandfather’s artifacts would be something they would accept: a framed portrait of him (above), three of his medical texts (one a lab workbook which he was in the middle of when he died!), his obituary from the newspaper, and a funeral program.

Even though my grandmother Senath lovingly kept these items about the father she never knew, I can’t keep everything. That’s a hard reality.

The curator answered my inquiry and they are accepting these items into their collection.  It's a good feeling to know they will be properly maintained and that future generations will be able to learn about my great grandfather.  I hope my grandmother would approve.

Over the past four years I've been trying to think about the best places to preserve family history.  Maybe you are facing similar decisions. What do I do with all the things my family has kept over the years or even generations? Personal history is more fragile than you think and can easily be lost.

Maybe there's a new and unexpected way for you to preserve your family's history, too?

----------------------------------------------

* Starling Medical College/St. Francis Hospital was significant as it was the first institution in the United States, designed to combine patient care and clinical teaching in the same building.

Also, see this Web site for an historical marker: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=12926

I also located a photo of St. Francis Hospital/Starling Medical College at: http://www.hellocolumbus.com/Photos_Buildings.Cfm

1963 Flooding. Court Street and Circle Avenue

With some record-breaking flooding in Oklahoma and Arkansas this week and severe storms in Central Ohio, it is timely that I came across this photo today.

This is the intersection of Court Street looking toward Circle Avenue.  The home furthest away is 611 Circle Avenue where my grandmother, Maude Rankin, lived in the 60's and 70's. 

This photograph was taken by Richard Rankin in the spring of 1963.

Senior Class ... 1902 Style

Congrats to the graduates of Miami Trace and Washington High Schools!

In 1902 my grandfather, Harry Rankin, was a senior at Washington High School and Editor-in-Chief of the school’s monthly
publication, the Argus. In the June edition, the Argus’ Literary Editor, Besse Jenkins, wrote the class poem for the 26 graduating members of the class of ’02.

The language isn’t what today’s seniors might be familiar with in the world of instant messages (IM’s) or tweets (LOL) but the sentiment remains the same about leaving lifelong friends (BFF’s) and heading into the future.

And if any here in dreaming,
     Of the dear old days gone by,
May brush away in sadness
     A salt tear from their eye,
They will understand our feeling
     For the olden times and why
The love for our old school days
     Shall never, never die!

Yet where e’er our Fate shall lead us,
     In the unknown path of life,
Whether gay and strewn with roses,
     Or dark with pain and strife,
The roses will be sweeter,
     And the pain, less hard to bear
As we think of our old school days,
    When our hearts were free from care.

Excerpted from “Class Poem” by Besse Jenkins, Argus, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1902

In the same edition of the Argus, the Class Prophecy, written by Ethel Crozier, predicts that in 1920 Besse Jenkins “ … has risen to fame through her clever illustrated stories and poems. She is now an associate editor of one of the leading periodicals.”

Memorial Day 2010

Headstone of an unknown soldier's grave,  Washington Cemetery.

Photo by: Senath Rankin

Honoring the Fayette County Revolutionary Soldiers (Part 1)

I recently came across two scripts that my grandmother, Maude Rankin, wrote for a weekly radio talk. One was about the First Families of Fayette County (more about that script in a future post) and this one:

“I have been given the radio time allotted to the Sesqui-Centennial Committee today to discuss with you a project that has been more or less a dream of ours for a good many years. The project of honoring the Revolutionary Soldiers who lived in Fayette County and are buried here by either marking their graves or erecting a plaque in a suitable place, whereon their names would appear.”

This script is significant because it gives some insight into the planning and goals of a number of people who were anxious to ensure that this part of Fayette County and national history was preserved.

But, since the script is not dated, two questions came immediately to mind.

First, the Ohio Sesquicentennial was 1953 and there was a local committee working on various projects for that event both for the state and local level. Maude was the chair of a sub-committee on the Pioneer Families of Fayette County. Then, Fayette County celebrated its own Sesquicentennial in 1960, where she served as an historian on the planning committee.

When I read the script and it mentions the Chairman of the Sesquicentennial, Mr. Ralph Penn, I verified in the booklet of Fayette County history that was published for that event, that this radio address was written for the 1953 Ohio Sesquicentennial. The impetus to commemorate the Revolutionary soldiers began in earnest in 1952-53 but had been considered well before.

I quote other excerpts from her script (typos, grammatical errors and commentary in tact):

“These men who fought in the War of Independence came into Ohio and it is surprising how many of them came into Fayette County, helped to clear the land, build roads and carve out the farms.

Did you know that there are more Soldiers of the Revolution buried in Ohio than in any other state?

... Now, the Sesqui-Centennial Committee, through its Chairman, Mr. Ralph Penn, has suggested that we undertake the project of providing a suitable memorial for these men, and our enthusiasm has risen again. This would be a visible and permanent result of our efforts in celebrating our Sesqui-Centennial.”

She goes into detail about the efforts of the local D.A.R. chapter, under the leadership of its Regent, Mrs. Hynes, to obtain markers for each grave. But while the cost would have been minimal because the Veterans Administration would have provided them for free, there were several reasons why the D.A.R. concluded they could not undertake the project:

1. The physical work of setting concrete bases and the markers.

2. The location of some gravesites on private land (“Many of these old soldiers are buried in the little abandoned cemeteries on a knoll on someone’s farm, and it is extremely difficult to get into many of them”);

3. The fear that the markers or even the graves would not be maintained (“Every so often one of them is plowed up and farmed over; although how anyone can commit such a sacrilege is beyond us.”).

4. Not the least of all, “We simply do not know where all of these men are buried. So, at best, only part of the graves could be marked.”

"So, a bronze plaque with the names of all of these for whom we have proof of service and proof that they are buried in Fayette County, was the solution. We’ve seen some of these plaques on stones out of doors. You may have seen the one on the Court House lawn at Waverly. It is our desire that this plaque be placed in the lobby of the Court House. That is a point to be decided by the County Commissioners and the Centennial Committee."

I will continue with more from her script in a future post.

Please leave your comments or questions.

Signposts For The Future

Sometimes there comes a pause in life when the familiar forward motion no longer serves, when new direction must be sought. In such a pause I came into possession of chests and boxes of old papers, letters, scrapbooks, diaries. I went back then to my roots. Reading, I recalled my family in every sense of that good word, and found my signposts for the future.

My mother, Jane Thompson Rankin, used this excerpt from the book, Legacy of Love: A Memoir of Two American Families by Julia Davis, as her opening remarks before the Fayette County Genealogical Society for a December meeting sometime in the mid 1980's when she was the Society's president.

When I discovered Mom's notes on a yellow legal pad, the kind she used for so much of her writing, I knew exactly why she chose it. During her 89-year life she had inherited many chests and boxes from grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. She also collected other pieces of history and genealogy from friends. At auctions she sought out family Bibles; sometimes retrieving them from the trash heap. When Mom died in January 2006, I inherited it all from her.

Then I came into my own 'pause in life.'

I was down-sized and right-sized out of several jobs. I mourned the loss of mother, brother Tom and great-nephew Austin. During those subsequent times of unemployment and grieving, I took refuge in my family's mementos: books, photos, news clippings, souvenirs; those items big and small that held significance for them. During those moments when I wasn't sure what to do next, their struggles and triumphs and everyday life gave me focus, fresh perspectives on my family, and who I am because of them.

My inheritance also inspired me to research the missing pieces and to write. And it's inspired me to start this blog about Fayette County, the place where I grew up, and where my family has lived since the founding of the county in 1810.

In sharing my stories I hope to learn from others who also have a love of history.

I welcome your questions or comments.