What I Know About Jesse Rankin

I know a little bit about Jesse Rankin. 

Jesse was probably born in 1873, the tenth child of Samuel and Ellen Kline Rankin. This is consistent with his age as reported on the 1880 Census. 

Jesse's mother, Ellen, died when he was just nine years old. She had given birth to twelve children. She was just 38 years old. 

In 1894,when Jesse was about 20 years old, he was living in Mackinac County, Michigan. Many young men living in Missouri traveled to Michigan during the harvest season. Michigan is second only to California in terms of agricultural output. 

On 19 September 1894, Jesse and two other boys from Mackinac County, were recruited into the U. S. Army. Pvt. Jesse Rankin served his 1st enlistment of three years, and was discharged on 2 August 1897 from Fort Wayne, Michigan. 

About two weeks after leaving the service, Jesse joined the 14th Infantry, Co. H. He was transferred to Co. C of the 19th Infantry, and he participated in the Spanish American War in the Far East. He received his 2nd discharge from Sian [now Xian], China in 1900.

Pvt. Jesse enlisted a 3rd time. He was sent to the Phillipines and quickly became ill. He was in a U. S. Army hospital in Luzon. When he left the hospital, he was sent to the Benicia Arsenal, in Solano County, California. The arsenal still exists, though it's been decommissioned as a military facility.

Strangely, just before his 3rd enlistment was up, Pvt. Jesse deserted. Why would he desert after almost nine years with just a few months to go? It's a mystery. Maybe he had done something that would get him into hot water, so rather than wait around, he just left. His military records from the National Archives are very skimpy and lack the details to answer the question.

Until recently, this was as much as I knew about the elusive Jesse. The next part of the story is new information that I compiled over the weekend. 

Jesse was enumerated twice in the US Census in 1900. The first enumeration was on the June 1st, 1900. He stated the name of his home town specifically as "Brewer, Missouri." Brewer is a tiny community in Perry County, Missouri. Most people have never heard of it.

A second enumeration was recorded on the 23rd of June, when he had been admitted to the Santa Mesa Hospital in the Phillippines for an unknown cause. Jesse Rankin told the census taker that he was born in Missouri.

"Jessie" Rankin was enumerated in the 1910 Census, and it shows that he was working as a hired hand for the Adams family in Crawford County, Arkansas. He may not have actually talked to the enumerator. The census shows that Jesse was "32" years old, though at the time his actual age was 37.

In 1913, Jesse was married to Etta (or Elta) Clark on 25 February 1913 in Shady, Polk County, Arkansas. Polk County is just two counties south of Crawford County. There were no children of this marriage. Etta had previously been married to Frank Dickens, and they had one child, Mena Iona Dickens.

Jesse registered for the "Old Man's Draft" on 12 September 1918. His stated age was 45, which is accurate.

In 1920, "Jessie Rankings" and "Ettie," his wife, were again enumerated. Jesse, once again, gave his place of birth as "Missouri."

Jesse Rankin died on the 18th day of August, 1921, at the age of 47. His Arkansas death certificate number is 1114. His widow, Etta, survived Jesse by at least one year.

Thanks to the librarians at the Polk County Library in Mena, I now have an obituary for Jesse, first published in The Mena Star:

Funeral of Jesse Rankin was held Saturday at his home. Burial was at White Oak Cemetery. Mr. Rankin was born in 1873 in St. Mary's, Missouri, and was 18 when he entered the military. He married Ettie Clark, widow of Frank Dickens, about 8 years ago. He is survived by his wife, one step-daughter, Mena Iona Dickens, four brothers and two sisters living in St. Louis.

Although the obituary says he was buried in the White Oak Cemetery, there is no record of his burial in the Cemetery Inscriptions of Polk County, Arkansas, printed in 1984 by Kannady & Daniel.

Copyright 2015. All Rights Reserved.

WPA Mural: Jared French "Lunchtime with the Early Miners," 1938

U.S. Post Office Building, Plymouth: Lunchtime with Early Miners (1938) by Jared French, who painted the only nude in New Deal post office murals, despite warnings by government officials.

          Nudity was to be avoided, and Section Director Edward Bruce was emphatic about this point. “Anybody who wanted to paint a nude ought to have his head examined!” he declared. 

          Bruce’s officials were quick to advise artists to remove or tone down anything that might be deemed risqué. Once again, however, depictions of Native Americans proved to be an exception to the rule. Artists who specialized in figurative art could portray muscular, nearly naked Native Americans in poses deemed inappropriate for whites. 

          

          Jared French (1905–1987), an artist who devised an unusual pictorial language to explore human unconsciousness and its relation to sexuality, could not resist testing the boundaries. In 1937, he was working on two post office murals, one for Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and the second for Richmond, Virginia. 

          For the Richmond commission, he proposed depicting a group of Confederate soldiers in various states of undress preparing to cross a stream to flee advancing Union forces. The Section advised French that the figures must be clothed. “You have painted enough nudes in your life so that the painting of several more or less should not matter in your artistic career,” wrote a Section administrator. French capitulated on the Richmond mural—he wanted to be paid after all—but as a final jab at Rowan and the Section, he did manage to paint one more nude. 

          Before finishing the Plymouth mural, Mealtime with the Early Coal Miners, French inserted into the background a male figure piloting a barge, inexplicably unclothed. The nude pilot, like the union buttons of the railcar workers, went undetected by Treasury Department officials. The offending image appeared too small to be detected in the final eight-by-ten-inch photographs, and Mealtime became the only example of full-frontal nudity in a United States Post Office.

Source: David Lembeck, "Rediscovering the People's Art: New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania's Post Offices," article, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, (http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/arts_and_architecture/2805/post_office_murals/432816: posted 21 Sep 2015), para. 22.

Uncle Gordon Goes Joyriding

Death from Row with Six Thugs

Belvidere Daily Republican - (Special by United Press) 

Sunday, 7 December 1925

          One patrolman is near death, another man is dangerously injured, and two youths are in the hospital today following a holdup and shooting escapade and motor car collision overnight. 

           The patrolman, Theodore H. Funke, had stopped six youths in a stolen Packard motor car in the county after they had held up the owner of the car, Herman Hecht, and his niece.

          After Funke had fallen from the car, the six bandits in the Packard drove on, finally crashing broadside into a motor car driven by Henry Holthausen. The latter was badly injured. The patrolman leaped on the running board of the stolen car and was met by a fusillade of bullets. He was struck seven times.1

    

Sometimes You Just Have to Learn Things the Hard Way     

          One of the boys in the car that night was my great-uncle, Gordon. This is the family story that has been passed down to my generation. Family stories can be wrong, but so can newspapers.

          The story that I heard goes like this: Gordon was out joyriding with five friends. When the car they were in crashed, the boys did some scrambling. Some of the joyriders were well over 21 years of age. The oldest was 32. 

          According to the family, the older men told Gordon, age 17, to say that he did the shooting, because he would get off with a lighter sentence, being under 18 years old. After three trials, finally, the sentencing of the guilty parties would begin in April 1926. 

          The first to be sentenced was Frank O'Brien, age 19. He drew a sentence of 25 years.

          Next, William Palmisano, 23, was sentenced to 30 years. It was the heaviest sentence on an assault charge in the history of the St. Louis criminal courts.

          Gordon and Andrew Stangel were sitting in the courtroom during the sentencing of O'Brien and Palmisano. They heard the sentences meted out to the first two defendants and they must have been scared out of their wits.

          Both Gordon and Andrew withdrew their former pleas of "not guilty" and "threw themselves on the mercy of the court." The sentence for "assault with malice" ranged from two years to life imprisonment. 
          
          The testimony in the two previous trials showed that neither Gordon nor Andrew had fired any of the seven shots that seriously injured Officer Funke, and both Gordon and Andrew had been injured themselves after the shooting when the automobile they were riding in collided with another car at Grand Avenue and Bates Street.

          Andrew Stangel got five years.

          Gordon, now 18, was convicted of "assault with intent to kill." He was sentenced to ten years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He would not be leaving the State Prison until the 14th of April 1936, if he served his full 
term.2

          Fortunately for Gordon, he must have been an exemplary inmate. He was released on the 15th of October 1931, having served about half of his original sentence. And, as far as I can tell, he was never again involved in any serious criminal activity.3 

                    

Sources

          1. United Press, "Death from Row with Six Thugs," article, Belvidere Daily Republican, online, 7 December 1925; online, http://www.newspapers.com : accessed 12 September 2015.

          2. "Long Terms of Pals Draw Two Pleas of Guilt in Funke Case," St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, 16 April 1926, St. Louis Public Library, pg. 32, col. 2.

          3. Missouri Secretary of State, "Register of Inmates," Missouri State Archives, 1926-1931, pg. 185, record of Gordon [surname withheld], inmate number 29822, age 18, convicted of "assault with intent to kill."


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