Sarah
Jane (Rankin) Addis
(1866-1949)
Sarah
Jane (Rankin) Addis was born in Wharton Township, Fayette County, PA on July 11,
1866, the daughter of Robert and Hester
Ann (Minerd) Rankin.
On Nov. 27, 1890, Sarah married Charles J. Addis (1869-1927), a butcher and day laborer, the son of Henry (or Herman) and Martha Addis.
They had six children – Raymond Earl Addis, Sarah "Pearl" Chisnell, Robert Brownfield Addis, Charles Roy "Doe" Addis, Nora May "Skinny" Huey and Anna Mae Ritchie.
Circa 1919, Charles worked as a butcher. That year, the family resided in Wharton Township.
Sarah and Charles separated sometime after 1919 but before 1927. After their separation, she resided at High Point, Wharton Township. He roomed at the home of C.H. Shields on Railroad Street in Uniontown.
Tragedy
struck on Jan. 27, 1927 when Charles was age 45. He was struck and killed by a Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad train bound from Pittsburgh to Clarksburg, WV. The Uniontown
Daily News Standard reported that Charles “was said to have been walking
along the tracks picking up pieces of coal at the time of the accident. The
engineer saw the man and after blowing the whistle in an attempt to warn the
victim, tried to bring the fast train to a stop. Death was instant." His
mangled remains were buried at Park Place Cemetery in Uniontown. An inquest by
the Coroner of Fayette County exonerated the B&O from any blame, ruling that
"Charles Addis was a trespasser" on the railroad tracks.
Sarah outlived Charles by 22 years. She passed away on July 12, 1949, at the age of 83. She is buried near her parents and siblings at Brown Cemetery near Elliottsville.
Son
Raymond Earl Addis (1893-1964) married Clara Elizabeth McCartney. They had two
daughters, Betty Rhodes and Karen Lee Addis. Ray was a forest fire warden and district forest ranger,
and lived along Summit Golf Club Road near the famed
Laurel Caverns (formerly known as Delaney’s Cave) near Uniontown. During World
War I, he served as a private in Company E of the 320th Infantry, 80th Division.
On Jan. 2-3, 1932, in his role as fire warden, he gave tours of two local caves
to Ralph W. Stone, Assistant State Geologist of Pennsylvania. The first cave,
Delaney's (spelled "Dulany" here), was seven miles south of Uniontown
and three miles southeast of Fairchance. Stone devoted more than five pages to
this cave in his report, Pennsylvania Caves, published as Bulletin G3 of
the Topographic and Geologic Survey of 1932. "The writer saw the inner
recesses of this cave ... when it was explored by a party of 10 which was guided
by R.C. Bossart and Claude Hollar and included Mr. and Mrs. Landis Shaw Smith
and three others from Rochester, New York, and R.E. Addis, the warden," he
wrote. "This exploration occupied five hours." The next day, they
toured Barton Cave, which was 4.5 miles west of Elliottsville, "on the head
of Quebec Run, and close under the crest of Chestnut Ridge, ... on the W.R.
Barton heirs farm," wrote Stone. "The entrance to the cave is in a
draw in the vertical face of a low ledge, and just above a spring. [The] passage
is wider than it is high, and most of its length of about 400 feet one can walk
upright." A copy of Pennsylvania Caves is in the
Minerd-Minard-Miner-Minor Archives. Ray passed away at the age of 71 at the
Veterans Administration Hospital in Oakland, near Pittsburgh, PA, on Sept. 24,
1964.
In
1936, daughter in law Clara (McCartney) Addis made headline news. That year, on April 6,
1936, a TWA airliner named the Sunracer crashed in the
mountains above Uniontown. Everyone was killed except the flight attendant and
two passengers. The attendant, Nellie Granger, escaped the wreckage and somehow
stumbled to a nearby home – that of Ray and Clara's on
Chestnut Ridge Road. Granger made
an emergency telephone call and then went back to the crash site with George
Rankin, Alfred Rankin and Alfred's sons Robert and Harold. Clara and
Ray, seen
here, later testified before authorities on what they witnessed. The heroic
rescue later was featured, and Ray mentioned, in the book, Uniontown, by
Walter "Buzz" Storey, retired editor of the Uniontown
Herald-Standard newspaper.
Daughter Sarah "Pearl" Addis (1897-1966) was married twice. Her first husband, Jesse Ravenscroft (1893-1940), was a "well known sawmill worker."They had six children -- Irene Gall, Betty Ravenscroft, Delbert "Bert" Ravenscroft, Carl Ravenscroft, James Walter Ravenscroft and Charles Ravenscroft. Tragically, Jesse was killed in 1940 when, while walking about a quarter-mile from home, was struck by a "hit-skip driver in a heavy fog on the National Highway (Route 40). Pearl later married Albert Chisnell, who died in 1948. Pearl passed away at the age of 68, in Farmington, on Aug. 7, 1966. She was laid to rest in the cemetery of Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church in Farmington. At her passing, she had 16 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Son Robert Brownfield Addis (1900-1986) married Opal Clair Donges (1912-1989), a native of Jefferson City, MO, but a resident at the time of Clifton Mills, WV at the time of marriage. They had three daughters -- Stella Eileen Addis, Peggy Thomas and Doris Rhodes. Sadly, Stella died at age seven months on Christmas Eve 1934. The family lived in Farmington. Robert was a laborer. He passed away at the age of 85 on Oct. 17, 1986 in the Uniontown Hospital. He was laid to rest in the Brown Cemetery in Elliotsville. Opal outlived her husband by three years. She died at age 77 in Westmoreland Hospital on Feb. 10, 1989.
Daughter Nora Mae "Skinny" Addis (1905- ? ) married Andrew "Red" Huey (1901- ? ), a coal miner from Fairchance who was the son of James and Rebecca (Kennison) Huey. Circa 1964, they lived in Chalk Hill, near Uniontown.
Daughter Anna Mae (1911-1985) married James Edward Ritchey (1907- ? ), a laborer of Hopwood, Fayette County. The Ritcheys had five children -- Paul Ritchey, James Ritchey, Dorothy Swenglish, Peggy Moyers and Betty Spock. They resided in Uniontown in 1966. Anna Mae was a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Uniontown, and belonged to its Crusaders Sunday School class. She died at the age of 73, in the Spear Nursing Home in Markleysburg, PA, on Feb. 28, 1985. Burial was in LaFayette Memorial Park
Son Charles Roy "Doe" Addis (1903-1984) married Evelyn Fern Liston (1918-1954), the daughter of Lloyd Liston of Valley Point, Preston County, WV. They had one son, Walter Franklin Addis, who sadly died at a age in 1936. Fern passed away at age 36, while residing at High Point, on Sept. 29, 1954. Doe outlived her by three decades, and lived at Masontown, Fayette County. He died at the age of 80, at the West Virginia University Medical Center, on Feb. 27, 1984. He was laid to rest at Brown Cemetery in Elliotsville.
Copyright © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 Mark A. Miner