Amanuensis Monday: Murrays in the "Pullman Herald"

[Since part of my mission in taking my family history project public is to transcribe and share family documents, I have decided to participate in the weekly blog theme "Amanuensis Monday," started a while back by John Newmark of Transylvanian Dutch. As he explains, an amanuensis is "A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another." A weekly transcription project sounds like a great idea to me!]

Local newspapers can be a gold mine for the family history enthusiast. I feel lucky in that one newspaper containing many items about members of my family--the weekly Pullman Herald--has been digitized and made freely available to the public via the Library of Congress's Chronicling America project. The digital holdings run from November 1888 to December 1922. A few months ago, I made an effort to transcribe at least some of the news items about my relatives. Unfortunately, I decided to experiment by recording my findings in Google Docs. I won't go into the experience here, but suffice to say, my venture into cloud computing left me all wet. Now I am left with a very long Google Docs file that needs to be converted to something else. What a distasteful chore golden opportunity to post some of the highlights!

During this period of Murray Mania, I have thus far been focusing on my great-grandfather Frank Murray's journey to the area around Pullman, Washington, where he met his wife, Jennie Ryan, and where they raised their family. The posts in the series so far are

1. "Frank Murray pt 1: From Rocking Babies to Herding Cattle" (and its update), which took Frank from the family farm in Nebraska to the Pullman area, where he met up with his Kincaid relations and caught his first glimpse of Jennie Ryan
2. "Frank Murray pt 2: His Wild Irish Rose," about Jennie, her courtship with Frank, and her father's opposition to their marriage
3. "Frank and Jennie: Anatomy of a Marriage Record," showing how at least some aspects of the family stories are confirmed by online records

Today I'll post Pullman Herald extracts--mostly one- or two-sentence "local news" items--that continue Frank and Jennie's story from their marriage on September 25, 1913, until August 1922 (the Library of Congress's digital holdings stop in December of that year).

As I explained in detail in "Frank Murray pt. 2: His Wild Irish Rose," Jennie's father, Patrick Ryan, did not approve of Frank Murray as a potential son-in-law, and the couple married without his blessing. I carefully examined every page of the Pullman Herald from mid-September through mid-October 1913, and I didn't find any announcement of the marriage. (It was a short, weekly paper, so this isn't as big a task as it sounds.)

Before Frank and Jennie married, Frank lived with and worked for his cousin Charles H. "Charlie" Kincaid. Since Frank didn't have his own place to take his new bride home to, family stories have long held that the Klemgard family let the newlyweds live on (and farm) Klemgard land for a couple of years. The Klemgards were a prominent family closely connected to the Kincaids: Charlie Kincaid's mother was born Christina Klemgard, and the land in question would have been owned by one of her two brothers, James Solomon Klemgard or John Morris Klemgard. The Pullman Herald confirms the story and sheds some light on the arrangement:

Date	Text	Pub. Info
3 Oct 1913	C. H. Kincaid has moved to his farm at Granite. ... Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray will occupy the J. S. Klemgard farm, recently vacated by C. H. Kincaid, Mr. Murray and Mr. Kincaid having a joint lease upon that farm.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.

It appears that the land that Charlie Kincaid and Frank Murray had been working together actually belonged to Charlie's uncle James Solomon Klemgard. I don't know how long Frank's name had been on the lease, but when Frank and Jennie married, Charlie (who owned other land) vacated the Klemgard farm in his cousin's favor. Pullman Herald items over the next two years show that Frank and Jennie shared strong farming and social bonds with the Kincaids. At the same time, Jennie remained close to her Ryan kin, while Frank worked to build ties with his new in-laws. Key Ryan relatives were Jennie's father, Patrick, and her brothers, Thomas William "Will," George Edward "Ed," and Paul. (Note: the following items are a representative selection of Murray appearances in the Pullman Herald. There are too many to post at once--even if I'd transcribed them all.)

Date	Text	Pub. Info
24 Oct 1913	Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Kincaid spent Monday at the Frank Murray home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
28 Nov 1913	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and Miss Bessie White were guests at the Will Ryan home Thanksgiving. ... Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Kincaid and children and Mr. and Mrs. Ray Tash were guests at the Frank Murray home the last of the week.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
5 Dec 1913	C. H. Kincaid and Frank Murray delivered in Pullman on Tuesday, 60 fat hogs.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
26 Dec 1913	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray, Mr. and Mrs. Will Ryan and children, and Ed Ryan spent Christmas at the Pat Ryan home in Pullman.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
2 Jan 1914	The little Misses Helen Kincaid and Nellie Ryan spent several days this week at the Frank Murray home. ... Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray spent from Sunday until Monday at the C. H. Kincaid home near Granite.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
16 Jan 1914	C. H. Kincaid and Frank Murray, assisted by several of their neighbors, last Monday butchered 23 hogs. ... Mrs. J. M. Klemgard, Mrs. Nat Bryant, Mrs. V. L. Higgins and Miss Belle Higgins were guests of Mrs. Frank Murray Monday. ... While rendering lard in a large kettle outside, on Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. C. H. Kincaid and R. L. Hollenbeck were severely burned about the face and hands when the lard exploded, throwing the burning grease on them. ... W. H. Kincaid of Pullman drove out to the Frank Murray home Tuesday, returning Wednesday.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
17 Apr 1914	Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Klemgard, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray, Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Kellogg, Miss Agnes McShane, Master Joe Kincaid, and Patsy, Mildred and Hudson Klemgard were guests of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Kincaid, near Chambers, on Easter.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
24 Apr 1914	Mr. and Mrs. Will Ryan and son, Mrs. Ed Hogan and children, Mrs. Frank Murray and Miss Agnes McShane, spent Sunday in Pullman at the Patrick Ryan home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 3; view page.
1 May 1914	Mrs. J. M. Klemgard called on Mrs. Frank Murray Tuesday afternoon. ... Mrs. Frank Murray spent Sunday in Pullman at the home of her father, Patrick Ryan.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
29 May 1914	Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Kincaid and son, Jack, of Chambers, Patrick Ryan, Mrs. White and daughter, Miss Bessie, of Pullman, were Sunday guests at the Frank Murray home. [The author of the Ewartsville column doesn't seem to be well enough acquainted with the Whites to know that "Mrs." Ellen White was Bessie's unmarried aunt, not her mother.]	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
4 Sep 1914	C. H. Kincaid and Frank Murray have purchased a vitrioling machine which treats six sicks [sic] of grain at one time. The machine is the same as the ones purchased by Sherman Brannon and Frank Wilson from E. C. Spurlock of Colfax.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
1 Jan 1915	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and Mr. and Mrs. Will Ryan and children were Christmas guests at the Patrick Ryan home in Pullman.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
23 Jul 1915	Mrs. Frank Murray and baby returned home last Thursday from the hospital where Mrs. Murray underwent an operation a short time ago.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.

The growing Murray family then moved to a piece of land that is still known as "the Back Place." Grand*a Murray told my mother that Frank and Jennie had to move due to an upcoming marriage in the Klemgard family: the farm the Murrays had been renting was earmarked for the happy couple, Flossie Klemgard and "Dutch" Slusser. This story seems to be borne out by the Pullman Herald (see the entry for 24 March 1916, below).

The Back Place adjoined Ryan land and may, in fact, have been Ryan-owned (it certainly was in later years). I can't lay hands quickly on hard ownership evidence, but family tradition says that Frank and Jennie rented the Back Place from Jennie's father, Patrick. One consequence of the move was that Frank's farming ties shifted: instead of working with his cousin Charlie Kincaid, he began working with his father- and brothers-in-law--Patrick, Will, and Ed Ryan. The Murrays did maintain social bonds with the Kincaids, but the fact that the Murrays were now Ryan neighbors meant that they now saw the Ryans much more often:

Date	Text	Pub. Info
22 Oct 1915	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray have moved to the farm recently vacated by Grant Clark.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
31 Dec 1915	Mr. and Mrs. Will Ryan and children, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and baby and Ed Ryan spent Christmas in Pullman at the Patrick Ryan home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
24 Mar 1916	Miss Flossie Klemgard, daughter of J. S. Klemgard, was married at Berkeley, Cal., last Sunday to Mr. Curtis Slusser. The young couple arrived in Pullman yesterday and will be at home at the J. S. Klemgard farm, 10 miles west of Pullman.	"Wedded at Berkley," sec. 1, p. 1, view page.
2 Jun 1916	Mr. Paul Ryan of Portland, Ore. is spending his vacation with his father in Pullman and his brothers, Will and Ed Ryan, and his sister, Mrs. Frank Murray, on the ranch.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
4-Aug-1916	Word has been received of the death of the father of Frank Murray at his home in Nebraska on Sunday morning. Frank Murray had journeyed there last week to be at the bedside of his father.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
18 Aug 1916	A RECORD PRICE PAID FOR BARLEY The local grain market is quiet just at present and the buyers seem reluctant to quote prices, probably on account of the threatened strike of railroad operatives. Farmers believe that prices will go higher and do not appear anxious to sell. Two large sales of barley are reported. Wilbur Henry, representing the Vollmer Clearwater company of Lewiston, Wednesday bought 4000 sacks of barley from Pat, Will and Ed Ryan and Frank Murray at $1.55 per hundredweight, the highest price yet reported. N. E. J. Gentry on Tuesday bought from C. A. Price 4000 sacks of barley at $1.50 per hundred. The only prices quoted yesterday were: Red Russian........$1.00 Club...............$1.02 Fortyfold..........$1.03 Oats...............$1.20 Barley.............$1.50	"A Record Price Paid for Barley," sec. 1, p. 4; view page.
18 Oct 1918	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and children spent Sunday afternoon at the Will Ryan home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 3; view page.
3 Jan 1919	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and two children spent Christmas at the Pat Ryan home in Pullman.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
10 Jan 1919	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and children spent Saturday and Sunday at the Pat Ryan home in Pullman. Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Slusser and little son...and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and children spent last Thursday at the Oscar Kincaid home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 8; view page.

Then, in 1920, the Murrays made their final move, from the Back Place (which was remote and hard to get to) to a new, more accessible farm Frank purchased. Because Frank and Jennie got on well with Jennie's brothers Ed and Will (and their families), Frank chose a piece of land that was near to both the Ryan land and the local country school. As before, the Murrays saw the Kincaids occasionally (Grand*a Murray remembered them mainly as people *e saw on holidays) and the Ryans often.

Date	Text	Pub. Info
2 Apr 1920	EIGHT REALTY DEALS IN LAST FEW DAYS Local Firm Establishes Record for Transfer of Property--Five Farms, Three City Residences Sold A new record for real estate sales was established this week by the Hazen, Hately & McClaskey Realty company, when transfers were made for five pieces of farm property and three city residence property. The total amount of the deals was $160,350. The Robert Neely farm of 229 acres on Union flat was sold to Frank Murray. This place is well improved and a first class farm. The place was bought for a home...	"Eight Realty Deals in Last Few Days," sec. 1, p. 1; view page.
23 Apr 1920	County Records ------- April 10, 1920 Deeds Robert J. Neely to Frank Murray, sh of nwq, nh of swq 3-13-44, part lot 1 of Sec. 4, part lots 2, 3, 4, of 3-13-44, $33,000.	"County Records" column, sec. 2, p. 12; view page.
23 Apr 1920	April 14, 1920 Mortgages Frank Murray to M. G. Bjord, part lot 1, Sec. 4, part lots 2, 3, 4, of 3-13-44, $3000.	"County Records" column, sec. 2, p. 12; view page.
7 May 1920	April 30, 1920 Mortgages Frank Murray to Thomas Halpin, sh of nwq and nh of swq 3-13-44, $8000.	"County Records" column, sec. 2, p. 9; view page.
31 Dec 1920	W. H. Pritchard butchered hogs on Monday. The men who assisted were Will Ryan, Frank Murray, Ole Ousley, Tom Alsup and L. R. Rucker. Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Rucker spent the day with Mrs. Pritchard.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
23 Dec 1921	Sunday a surprise birthday dinner was given in honor of Wm. Ryan and Ed Hogan at the home of the latter. Those present were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and family, Mr. and Mrs. Grant Clark, Wm. Hogan, Arthur Ausley and James McGreevy.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 3; view page.
3 Feb 1922	Will Ryan, Frank Murray, and W. H. Pritchard butchered 24 hogs on Monday of this week at the Ryan home.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 5; view page.
4 Aug 1922	Mr. and Mrs. Frank Murray and children of Ewartsville called at the Chas. Kincaid home Sunday.	"Ewartsville" column, sec. 1, p. 3; view page.

All issues of the Pullman Herald after December 31, 1922, will still be in copyright until at least 2018, so if I want to follow the Murrays into 1923 and beyond, I'll have to see if microfilm is available!

Frank Murray pt 2: His Wild Irish Rose

This post is a follow-up to my earlier post "Frank Murray pt 1: From Rocking Babies to Herding Cattle." In part 1, I wrote about my great-grandfather Frank Murray's journey from his family's farm in Nebraska westward to Pullman, Washington, where he began working for his uncle, William H. "Bill" Kincaid. When we last left Frank, he had just caught his first glimpse of my great-grandmother, Jennie Ryan.

Frank Murray and Jennie Ryan, c. 1913. Excerpt from a family photo.

I don't know how Frank and Jennie actually met, but the family story about that first sighting (see part 1) suggests that Bill Kincaid or Bill's son Charlie may have introduced them, perhaps around 1910-1912.[1] Although Frank probably lived on Charlie's Kincaid's farm a few miles outside of town much of the time, he likely visited his uncle Bill in Pullman often. Jennie also lived in Pullman, with her father, Patrick Ryan. As two prominent, well-off landowners living in the same small town, Bill and Patrick were probably at least slightly acquainted.

View Larger Map

According to the 1910 U.S. census, Bill Kincaid lived at 1714 B Street, an address Google Maps puts at just a little over a mile northeast of Patrick Ryan's 315 West Main Street house. Google may not have the addresses perfectly placed, but at the right you'll see one possible route between the two houses, with Bill Kincaid's place as (roughly) point A and Patrick Ryan's as (roughly) point B.[2]

Frank most certainly found Jennie Ryan a woman worth traveling a mile for. Born in Lewis County, New York, in the early 1880s, Jennie was probably just a toddler when her parents, Patrick and Jane (White) Ryan, decided to move across the continent to homestead in Garfield County, Washington. Arriving around April 30, 1884, the Ryans laid claim to a plot of land on the cheerily named Deadman Creek near the town of Pomeroy.[3] According to Grand*a Murray's Jennie Ryan Letter, the homestead was very isolated: "It must have been a spartan and lonely life," *e wrote. Neighbors would have been spread far apart, and for the next few years (until the family sold the homestead and moved to Whitman County), Jennie had few playmates. Her two older brothers, Ed and Will, were probably too busy with schoolwork and farm chores to play much; her baby brother, Paul, wasn't born until 1888; and a ten-year age difference separated her from her only sister, Nellie.[4] This meant Jennie had to learn to amuse herself when she wasn't helping her family with chores. It also meant that she grew up a little wild. As Grand*a Murray wrote,

Jennie used to chase the wild range horses. She would hide behind some sage brush and jump out at them.

"It was a dangerous game," Grand*a continues--but then, Jennie could be dangerous, too:

Once she chased a little colt until it died from exhaustion. [Her father] spanked her, and that was the only spanking she ever had.[5]

As she grew older, Jennie learned to ride and to shoot, developing both skills to a high level of mastery. My mother tells me that Grand*a Murray and other relatives always said Jennie could ride a horse as well as any man. And according to the Pullman Herald newspaper, as a young woman Jennie won second place in a contest to find the "best saddle horse, ridden by a lady," proving she could not only ride a horse--she looked good doing it.[6] As for her marksmanship, Grand*a Murray contends she was a crack shot:

Once when she was practicing target shooting, a man held up his hat and said, "I'll give you five dollars if you can hit it." She took aim and shot a hole in his hat.[7]

I remembered hearing a different take on this tale, so I asked Mom about it. "Oh, Grand*a cleaned that story up," she told me. In the version Mom heard from various Murray relatives as a child, Jennie shot the man's hat from her own front porch--not from some shooting range. And she didn't make the shot on a bet, either: somehow the man had made her mad and she wanted to get rid of him, so she grabbed her gun and shot the hat off his head. Mom has no idea who the man was or what he'd done to irritate Jennie. When Mom was a kid, she says that the story was often told to illustrate Jennie's spooky-good marksmanship--but that whenever shocked and fascinated grandchildren like herself asked follow-up questions, the adults always quickly changed the subject. A century later, we'll never know what actually happened. But it's clear that Jennie's immediate descendants saw her as a woman who was capable of

1. shooting a hole in a man's hat to prove she could do it
2. shooting a man's hat off because he annoyed her

There are other stories I could tell here, too--more hints, around the edges, of a nasty temper. But I think I've given you a basic idea of Jennie's wild, strong-minded, Annie-Oakley side. Without question, she was a spirited woman.

At the same time, though, Jennie was a conventional farmer's daughter. Despite her occasional hat-directed violence, she spent most of her time, as girl and woman, taking care of family in one way or another. She fed chickens. She made jam. She worried (at least sometimes) what the neighbors might think. (I've already written about how sensitive--even vain--she was about her age.) Page after page of the Jennie Ryan Letter describes the many domestic chores Jennie grew up tackling every day, from hauling water and milking cows to baking bread and making clothes. Some of these tasks she seems to have genuinely enjoyed: she was a good enough cook to sell her wares when money was tight, and I think the name of the sewing club she started--the Pleasant Stitches Club--reflects her feelings about that occupation. She was a warm, hardworking, intensely social woman who welcomed guests and was always "ready to go"--out to local plays, festivals, and potluck dinners, over to neighbors' houses, or even just into town. She loved to visit with people, to laugh and joke and sing and dance. "Mother was fun," Grand*a writes simply.[8]

With such a potent blend of characteristics, it's easy to see why Frank Murray--a hardworking farmer who wasn't without his adventurous side--might set his cap for a woman like Jennie Ryan. Luckily for him, she liked the set of his cap, and the two decided to marry.

There was, however, a problem with the match: Jennie was a Catholic. I have no idea what faith, if any, Frank was born to, but he was certainly not Catholic.[9] Worse for them, Jennie wasn't just any sort of Catholic--she was an Irishman's daughter.

Jennie's father, Patrick Ryan, was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, within a couple of years of the outbreak of the devastating Irish Potato Famine. Over the next few years, many neighbors, friends, and relatives left the Ryans' neighborhood for a better life in America. A group of these Tipperary refugees settled in what's called the Maple Ridge area of Lewis County, New York, and eventually Patrick Ryan's whole family emigrated to join them. The members of the "Maple Ridge Migration" were a close-knit group, sharing culture, faith, and family ties. At the center of this newly American Irish community was the local Catholic church--and not only did the Ryans attend that church, they helped to build it in the first place.[10]

In 1871, Patrick Ryan married Jane White, who'd grown up in a nearby Lewis County town. Although Jane was an American, both of her parents were Irish immigrants, and her family was, like Patrick's, Catholic. The Whites were so Catholic, in fact, that Jane's mother reportedly died in church--on her knees--praying. ("She must have been a saint," says the Murray-Ryan Packet.)[11]

So Patrick married into a family that was much like his own in culture, faith, and devotion. When he and Jane decided to take their children and move to Washington, they operated on the Maple Ridge model: they stuck with family (Patrick's brother Thomas also moved his family to Garfield County), and they stuck to their church. The Jennie Ryan Letter describes how, during the Ryans' early years in rural Washington--come blasting heat or winter snow--they'd ride in an open wagon across rutted dirt roads to Mass every Sunday. It was ten or eleven miles to the nearest Catholic church, so the round trip took all day. After the Ryans moved to Pullman, the situation improved: while there was still no Catholic church in town, there was at least a denser population of Catholics (many of them Irish immigrants or their children), and the local parish would send a priest around from time to time to minister to that flock. On such occasions, local Catholics would gather to hear Mass and receive communion--and often, they gathered at Patrick Ryan's house. One of Grand*a Murray's first cousins told my mother that Patrick's house was sometimes referred to as "Little Ireland."

Knowing all of these things, it's possible to imagine Patrick's reaction when Jennie announced her intention to marry un-Catholic Frank Murray. Jennie was, by this time, Patrick's only surviving daughter, and he must have had hopes that she would find some good, well-off, clean-living Irish lad to marry--a man who knew the old songs and would raise the grandkids to work hard, go to Mass, and hate the English. Patrick's other daughter, Nellie, had died tragically young around 1897--but she had become a nun! Now here was Jennie, ready to marry a man who, in Patrick's book, must have had at least three black marks against him:

1. He didn't own his own farm--or indeed any property (that I'm aware of). How would he provide for a woman who was used to living in town and having her own riding horse?
2. He wasn't Irish. True, Frank did have some Irish blood in him, but his parents hailed from Illinois, not Cork or Tipperary.
3. The clincher: not Catholic. Worse, according to my mother (who has trouble imagining her grandfather as strongly religious at any stage of his life), Frank may not have even been a regular church-goer when he and Jennie met.

Frank couldn't do much about (probable) objections number one and two, but he did commit to a Catholic wedding. This would have involved months of instruction and counseling by a priest. I don't know whether or not Frank considered full conversion, but the Ryan-Murray Packet is clear that he did not convert at that time. In the Jennie Ryan Letter, Grand*a Murray explains that Frank struggled to learn about Catholicism because, in those days, everything was still in Latin.

Merely meeting the requirements to be married in the Catholic church, though, was no substitute, in Patrick's mind, for actually belonging to that faith, and he refused to give his blessing to the match. The couple married anyway, in a small ceremony in the Catholic church in Rosalia, Washington. Patrick did not attend, and there was no announcement in the local paper.

Frank did, however, have some allies in the Ryan family: Jennie's brother Will and his wife, Jess, acted as best man and matron of honor. And as time went on and grandchildren began to arrive, Patrick warmed to his new son-in-law. Frank began seeing more and more of his new Ryan kin and a bit less of his Kincaid relations. In a future post, I'll pick up this story again and begin to explore what I think of as the Irishing of Frank Murray.

Notes

[1] Grand*a Murray's Jennie Ryan Letter says that my great-grandparents were married two years after they met, but Grand*a offers no further details. I don't know whether *e was estimating or guessing or where *e got that number. Frank and Jennie married September 25, 1913. Because of some tough family issues surrounding the wedding that I'll get to later in the post, I suspect that they courted for at least a year or two before marrying, hence my upper limit of 1912 for their first meeting; but I have no corroborating evidence for this other than Grand*a's mysterious "two years." As for my lower limit of 1910, this is based on two pieces of pure conjecture. Firstly, I imagine that Frank had probably worked on the Kincaid farm outside town for at least a few months before he and Jennie met--and we don't know that he was in the area until 1910. (For details about when I estimate Frank arrived in Pullman, see part 1, especially note 2.) Secondly, I think it's likely that Frank and Jennie started courting after Patrick Ryan bought his house in town in 1909 (see note 2, below). In Pullman, there would have been more places and opportunities than in the country for single people to rub elbows away from disapproving family members. Now, the whole purpose of this note is to broadcast how shaky my estimate is; I did, however, think it was worth attaching some time frame to their courtship, even if it was only a guess, just to orient the reader.

[2] The Ryan home is still standing today and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (as the William Swain House). Patrick Ryan purchased the home from C. H. Buell in 1909 and planned to move part of his family there within a week of announcing his intention in the 24 September 1909 issue of the Pullman Herald. (The brief announcement appears on p. 4, halfway down the third column of the "Personal" section). Regarding the Google map of the route between the Ryan and Kincaid homes, Pullman has changed quite a bit since the early 1900s as Washington State University has grown, but I used a 1913 map of the WSU campus (it was Washington State College in those days) to trace a route that would have worked back then. It may not be the route that people of that period would have chosen.

[3] According to Patrick Ryan's homestead records, which I photocopied at the National Archives in August or September 2009. 

[4] The names of Jennie's family members are consistent across Mom's Tree, the Ryan-White Tree, the Murray-Ryan Packet, and the Jennie Ryan Letter. They are backed up by family photographs, the memories of living descendants, census records, and official documents obtained through the Washington State Digital Archives. Unless otherwise stated, biographical information about Jennie and her family in the rest of this post is taken from one or more of the written family sources named in the first sentence of this note.

[5] Jennie Ryan Letter.

[6] "All Records Broken at 7th Annual Grange Picnic," Pullman Herald, 10 July 1908, p. 1. Online at the Library of Congress's Chronicling America newspaper collection (view page).

[7] Jennie Ryan Letter.

[8] This paragraph basically boils down and paraphrases information and descriptions of Jennie from the Jennie Ryan Letter and the Murray-Ryan Packet. My description of Jennie as a "conventional farmer's daughter" paraphrases a description in the Letter. Both sources talk about Jennie's cooking and sewing and how she started the Pleasant Stitches Club, though only the Packet gives the club's name. Both talk about the food she prepared and sold to local stores. The Murray-Ryan Packet specifically states that Jennie was hard-working, while the Jennie Ryan Letter lists enough tasks to make that fact plain. Both sources also dwell on Jennie's sociability and her love of music, though only the Letter mentions her sense of humor or how she was always "ready to go." I added one inference of my own: that Jennie worried about what the neighbors would think.

[9] The phrase "not a Catholic" is used repeatedly in my family sources to describe Frank's religious condition before he met Jennie. Nowhere does it say what he was, if not Catholic.

[10] Thomas E. Buckley, S. J., "The Ryan Family in Ireland and America," rev. 2005, online at http://mcgrathsearch.com/files/Ryan%20Family%20History%20-%20Buckley.pdf. Father Buckley is a descendant of Patrick Ryan's brother Thomas. Michael F. McGraw, whose website, mcgrathsearch.com, hosts Buckley's article, has further developed Buckley's idea of the "Maple Ridge Migration" through a great deal of additional research.

[11] Mom's Tree, the Ryan-White Tree, and the Ryan-Murray Packet all state that Patrick Ryan and Jane White married in 1871 in Copenhagen, New York; that Jane was born in New York; and that both of her parents were Irish. All of this information (except for the marriage location) is confirmed by census records.

Frank Murray pt 1: From Rocking Babies to Herding Cattle

My great-grandfather Frank Murray was what you'd call a self-made man. Born in the early 1880s, as a young adult he left the family farm near Kearney, Nebraska, with dreams of starting a new life for himself further west. Eventually, he settled in the area around Pullman, Washington, bought a farm, and raised his family.

Frank didn't have much to his name when he left home, so he

worked his way West, doing anything he could to earn money “from rocking babies to herding cattle,” he said. (Murray-Ryan Packet)

This seems to have been Frank's favorite phrase to describe his journey, since I've also heard it from both Grand*a Murray and my mother. Not very much is known about where he went or exactly what he was up to (we don't even know when he set out), but he had a repertoire of colorful stories he liked to tell about some of his adventures, and sometimes the stories give clues to his movements. For example, I once asked Grand*a Murray if *e knew anything specific about what Frank did on his early travels. "Well, he spent a little while in Wyoming," *e told me--and went on to relate the following tale.

Once, while Frank was driving cattle in Wyoming, he returned to camp very late after a hard day's work. He was exhausted and very hungry. Desperate for something to eat, he spotted a pot of navy beans near the fire. Seizing the pot, he wolfed down the beans--with an eagerness he would later regret. As the ominous rumblings of his stomach soon made clear, those beans had sat out too long.

"Dad said he was never so sick in his life," Grand*a laughed. "He thought he would die."

Frank probably spent most of his journey doing seasonal work on farms and ranches, but he also sometimes earned money by working as a barber (according to the Murray-Ryan Packet, Grand*a Murray, and my mother). This was apparently a very important skill to him, and he liked to tell his children and grandchildren about the kinds of characters he ran into on the job. Mom often talks about how he kept his barber's kit and used it to cut his children's hair (and how Grand*a Murray never liked the results).

Frank may have learned the barbering trade in Nebraska. We're not really sure, but it would have been a sensible profession for a young guy on the move without much cash. You only needed a few items to get going: razor, strap, scissors, comb, shaving mug, and brush. And it was, as Mom put it, "a very portable trade--you could pretty much take it anywhere" and find guys who needed a trim and a shave.

In the early twentieth century, though, local barbers did more than just cut hair--especially in rural areas. Barbers provided a listening ear, a word of advice, and even basic first aid to their clients. (Before the 19th century, barbers doubled as surgeons and dentists, and even in the early 20th century many people still went to their barber rather than their doctor to get minor ailments treated.) Barbers got to know their regular customers, who came from all walks of life, in a different way than any mere hairdresser would.

Frank told Mom that Two-by- Four Johnson was the spitting image of Hoss Cartwright.

My mother recently told me what she said was a typical story from Frank's barbering days. According to her, Frank's client list at one point included a number of Swedish immigrants named Johnson. These Johnsons tended to be tough farm-laborers who were known by nicknames: Johnny, Goose, Two-by-Four. One day, Goose Johnson came in looking a mess. "What happened to you?" Frank demanded. "Well, I hit a fella!" Goose replied--and presented his black eye for treatment. No doubt, he told Frank all about his dust-up.

Eventually, Frank's travels took him to Washingon, where he found steady work in a barber shop in the little town of Waitsburg, according to both the Murray-Ryan Packet and Grand*a Murray. He apparently stayed in Waitsburg for an extended period--but again, we don't know much in the way of specifics. Who did Frank work for? No idea. When did he arrive? Not sure, except that it was before 1910. How long did he stay? Most estimates range from "some time" to "quite a while." After some thought, Grand*a Murray ventured that she believed it was about two years.

An even larger question, though, is why Frank chose to go to Washington in the first place. Why not Idaho, Oregon, Montana, California--or some other part of the country entirely?

My mother believes that Frank was inspired by one of his uncles, William H. "Bill" Kincaid, a Washington pioneer. Bill, who was Frank's mother's brother, had left his family's farm back in the 1860s or '70s with his own dreams of a new life out west. In the 1880s, when Frank was still a baby, Bill had homesteaded in Whitman County, not far outside the town of Pullman.

According to Bill's homestead records, he and his wife and two children spent about a year and a half living in a 16-by-26-foot, wood-frame shack to secure their claim. Those months of hard living paid off later, though. With 160 acres of land officially his by 1884, Bill began a successful career as a farmer, livestock-raiser, and real estate investor. Within a few years, he became one of Whitman County's more prominent and prosperous citizens.

Bill Kincaid tried his hand at all kinds of enterprises. Think of this one as the Avis of the 19th century. (Click image for more info.)

My mother says that Frank Murray, like his uncle, had some idea of homesteading in Washington--but that by the time he got out there (ca. 1905-1909), all the best land had been claimed. She says he used to talk about how he'd wanted to homestead. When I asked Grand*a Murray why Frank chose to go to Washington, though, *e simply responded, "I don't know"; so it's Mom's memory against Grand*a's on this score.

Whether or not Bill Kincaid's example directly inspired Frank to head to Washington, once he got there he couldn't help thinking about the old pioneer. Sometime around 1909, Frank decided to pack up his barbering kit, leave Waitsburg, and look up his uncle. By that time, Bill had more or less handed the day-to-day operations of his farm and ranch over to his eldest son, Charles H. Kincaid, and retired to a spacious townhouse in Pullman.[1]

When Frank arrived in Pullman (so the family story goes), it was the Fourth of July, and celebrations were underway. Frank had probably never met his uncle before and didn't know how to find him. So he asked somebody he met, "Do you know Bill Kincaid?" "Well, sure!" they said. "There's a parade coming by, and he's in it!"

Horse parade, Pullman, Washington, June 28, 1913. (Click image for more info.)

Sure enough, pretty soon down the street came Bill Kincaid in his horse-drawn buggy. Beside him sat his youngest daughter, "Nita" (Mary Anita), decked out in her patriotic finest. When Frank saw his uncle and cousin, he ran right up and jumped in the buggy--scaring Bill half to death (but accomplishing his mission). Uncle, nephew, and cousin finished the parade together.[2]

Frank soon began working the Kincaid land with Bill's son Charles, showing up as a "hired man" in Charlie's household in the 1910 federal census. It's lucky that Charlie's place was in the Ewartsville neighborhood just southwest of Pullman, because the local paper, the Pullman Herald, ran a regular column on Ewartsville happenings. In 1911, Frank's name started appearing in that column--and at first, the items were not very cheerful:

Frank Murray went to Juliaetta Saturday to receive treatment for appendicitis. (28 July 1911, p. 4, "Ewartsville" column; view page)

Frank Murray is at the home of his uncle, W[illiam]. H. Kincaid, having sufficiently recovered from his recent operation to leave the hospital [in Juliaetta] last Wednesday. (25 August 1911, p. 8, "Ewartsville" column; view page)

Frank Murray is at home again, after his recent operation. (8 September 1911, p. 3, "Ewartsville" column; view page)

Clearly, Frank's story about the spoiled beans was a little stretched: that appendicitis took him out for over a month! By October of the same year, though, he was starting to find his place in the Pullman community, as the Pullman Herald shows.

Among Ewartsville visitors to the Lewiston fair were Mr. and Mrs. C[harles]. H. Kincaid and Frank Murray. (13 October 1911, p. 4, "Ewartsville" column; view page)

Mr. and Mrs. W[illiam]. H. Kincaid and daughters, Anita and Belle, and Frank Murray visited the J. M. Klemgard home Sunday. (29 December 1911, p. 6, "Ewartsville" column; view page)

The Kincaids were active in their community and had a large circle of friends and extended family within a few miles of Pullman. Frank was a solid, affable fellow, and his aunt, uncle, and cousins introduced him to many of their friends and relations. He began getting invited to Christmas parties and weddings, and when there were fairs or other celebrations going on nearby, he had people to enjoy them with.

Frank made another social connection, as well. "One day," says the Murray-Ryan Packet, "when he and his Uncle were building fence he saw a 'beautiful lady' ride by in a buggy, and he told his Uncle he would like to meet her. Her name was Jennie Ryan."[3]

Frank's story will continue in Part 2.

Notes

[1] This is an inference from census records (which show Bill, after about 1900, living in a house in town, while Charlie occupies a farm outside of town) and the Pullman Herald (which makes repeated mention of the "W. H. Kincaid home" in Pullman and the "C. H. Kincaid home" in the country; "C. H. Kincaid" also starts appearing in agricultural stories more often than his father after 1905 or so). By June of 1910, when census records show that Frank was definitely in the neighborhood, Bill would have been 65 years old. 

[2] Grand*a Murray told me this story. I don't think it has been told much to my generation, but Mom says she has heard it "many times." I gather that it was one Frank told often. I'm not sure whether Frank actually arrived in Pullman on July 4th or not. As I show in later paragraphs, Frank had definitely connected with the Kincaids by June of 1910. Based on his age and the amount of time it must have taken him to work his way west (stopping for weeks or months here and there to earn money), I suspect he had only recently arrived at that time. I'm guessing that he first made it to Pullman around 1908-1910--which would have been during a four-year hiatus in the town's usually lively Independence Day celebrations. There were, however, other summer festivals in the area that featured parades--and some even overlapped with the 4th of July (here's one). So perhaps Frank turned up for one of those. Bill Kincaid very likely did participate in the parades, though I couldn't find any specific references in the Pullman Herald. As a long-time breeder of both horses and cattle, he would certainly have taken every opportunity to show off his best animals.

[3] Frank was more likely to have been "building fence" with his cousin Charlie than with Bill (who was in his mid-to-late 60s by the time of this story). On the other hand, Bill Kincaid's townhouse was closer to Jennie's father's townhouse than Charlie's farm was to the Ryan farm.

New Theme: Murray Mania!

In the next few posts, I'll be sharing information, stories, and impressions of my great-grandfather Frank Murray and his ancestors and relations. I'll also be transcribing documents related to the Murrays and adding them to the "Transcriptions" section of the As Old As the Hills website. Mostly these will be biographical sketches that have appeared in local histories I've found on either the Internet Archive or Google Books.

Why did I decide to go to the bother of transcribing stuff that's already digitized and freely available online? Three reasons.

1. The sketches are scattered all over the place, and I felt it would be useful to corral them together in one spot. 
2. The Internet Archive could crash; Google could decide to scrap their massive digitizing project, start charging for it, or take some stuff down that's currently posted. What's available now might not be available forever, and for my own purposes at least, I'd like to record my findings.
3. Computers stink at reading scanned documents. If you look at the raw, computer-recognized text of a Google book, you're going to find stupid errors, like "Vl/omen" instead of "Women." Google, though, is constantly working to correct its texts. The situation is much worse on the Internet Archive, where anyone can upload documents, but there's no quality control on the OCR jobs and no way for users to make corrections (short of uploading duplicate copies of the book). Some of the bio sketches I've transcribed, I've stumbled on by chance in digitized books whose OCR'd text was too garbled for the names to pop up in a search. By posting accurate transcriptions on my website, I hope to make the job of finding all these sketches easier!

Since the Murray branch of my family did not produce very many of the sort of wealthy and distinguished individuals that local histories love to praise, most of the bio sketches I've found are of more distant kinfolk--third great-uncles or second cousins twice removed. One exception to this rule, though, is my third great-grandfather George Kincaid, who owned an impressively large farm in Illinois. (If you're looking at the Great-grandparent Key in the sidebar, George Kincaid's eldest daughter, Lucy Kincaid, was Frank Murray's mother.) I'll be talking more about the Kincaids later, but check out George's bio sketch to see a picture of him!

I do also have some primary research I'll be sharing on the website--for example, I've begun digitizing the probate records of Maranda Corbin (Maranda's son Maxwell Gulliver Murray was Frank Murray's dad).

So stay tuned here, keep an eye on the website, and let Murray Mania begin!