52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 5): So Far Away

Amy Johnson Crow from Generations Cafe is hosting a blog writing prompt this year called 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  Since I need a swift kick in the you-know-what to get me blogging more regularly again, I thought I'd jump in.  I like that she gives us "permission" to interpret the prompt however we wish and share it however we wish.  It doesn't have to be a blog post; it could be a family video, a letter to a child or grandchild, an e-mail, etc.  I'm actually jumping back a week to address the prompt "So Far Away."

In 1906, my great-grandfather, Luther Boardman Ranney, and my great-grandmother, Bessie Alice Carter, were wed.  They lived in Elsie, Clinton County, Michigan.  They had their first child in December of 1907, but unfortunately he only lived 4 days.  However, they went on to have three more children:  Kenneth, born in 1909, Alice, born in 1911, and Ethel (my grandmother), born in 1913.  They seemed to have a normal, fun childhood. 

 

Then, when Alice was 9 years old, about 1920, the doctor told her parents that she had tuberculosis (TB).  He went on to tell them that Alice would not make it through another Michigan winter.  She needed a warmer climate.

So almost immediately, it appears, the family packed up and moved across the country to Redlands, California.  Why there?  We don't know for sure, but I believe it was because Luther's Uncle Jonathan Hesser (his mother's brother), his wife, Kate, and their son, Otho, along with his wife, Viella, moved out there about the same time.  I'm not sure who followed who.  It looks like Viella was from Yucaipa, California, right up the road from Redlands.  Perhaps she suggested that would be a good area?  Or perhaps the train stopped at the station in San Bernardino (again, right up the road from Redlands and Yucaipa) and they thought the area looked good. 

How much courage it must have taken to move across the country, especially at that time!  The roads were not good and car tires went flat constantly.  I would imagine cars weren't dependable at all that early on.  Or perhaps they took a train.  That would be a challenge in and of itself.  How do you carry everything you own for 5 people onto a train?! 

Then there's the fact that they left everything they knew... their home, family, friends, church... to start over where they knew no one, but an uncle, aunt and cousin.  And Bessie didn't even know them.  The Hessers had lived in Ohio so she had not met them before.  Bessie's parents had passed away by 1920 and she was an only child, so the only family she had were her husband and children.  Luther, however, had three siblings and their families that he probably never saw again.  His parents both died the fall of 1920, so did the family move before or after their deaths?  That would have been incredibly difficult for everyone either way. 

However, just like any other parents in the world, if a doctor tells you that your child will die if you do not get her to a warmer climate... then you move heaven, earth, trains, and automobiles to get her there. 

Even if it is so far away. 

Alice, Bessie, Ethel, Luther, and Kenneth Ranney

Alice Lucille Ranney Thornburg, 1911-1981