8TH GENERATION GILBERT STERLING RANSDELL AND AGATHA MATTINGLY

8^th generation: sons of Joseph Jackson Ransdell

Gilbert Sterling Ransdell

(1888-1969)

Agatha Frances Mattingly

(1884-1936)

Photos—thanks to D. Cheatham!

Agatha Mattingly age 20, 1904

Sterling, Agatha & Jim Ransdell 1924

Laura Terhune Ransdell & son Sterling

Sterling & Agatha Ransdell 1935

Agatha Mattingly Ransdell 1935

Sterling, Laura, Arthur & Betty Ransdell, 1937

Gilbert Sterling Ransdell 1950s

Gilbert Sterling Ransdell was born December 27, 1888, in Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky, the second of six sons of Joseph Jackson Ransdell and Laura Bell Terhune Ransdell.[1]

Agatha Frances Mattingly was born December 1, 1884, in Burgin, Mercer County, Kentucky, the oldest of three children of John B. Mattingly and Sarah T. Barnett Mattingly. (She had two brothers, James and George.) (See MATTINGLY and BARNETT)

Sterling and Agatha were married on December 19, 1906[2] in her parents' home in Mercer County, Kentucky. She had just turned 22; Sterling was not quite 18. To this union were born seven children:

i. Sarah Evelyn, born September 1908, Burgin, Mercer County, Kentucky. Married in May 1934, William Henry Warnke, Jr. (1905-1940) son of William Henry Warnke, Sr. and Lena Helck, four children. Subsequent marriages: William Cowe (1892-1977), Evean Prather (1898-1977), Joseph Staudinger (1907-1978); each ended in divorce. Sarah died November 1993 in Arizona, age 85.

ii. Anna Belle, born May 14, 1910, Burgin, Mercer County, Kentucky. Married 13 September 1940 Stewart Bush (1911-1976), son of Walter S. Bush and Carolyn Etter Bush. Two children. Anna Belle died 2 June 2004 at her home in Erlanger, Kenton Co., KY, age 94.

iii. William Arthur, born January 27, 1912, Burgin, Mercer County, Kentucky. Married (1) Nellie Jackson Randolph (1912-1935) in 1932, no children. Married (2) LIVING in 1936, three children. Arthur died December 1977, age 65.

iv. John Gilbert (called J.G.), born January 1914, Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky. Unmarried. Died 26 Dec 1992, Kenton Co., KY, age 78.

v. Beulah Frances, born January 19, 1916, Ludlow, Kenton County, Kentucky. Married 21 Feb 1940 Thomas J. Hopson, Jr. (1915-1983), son of Thomas Jefferson Hopson, Sr. and Sarah Margaret Walter Hopson, six children. Died September 17, 1997, Highland Heights, Campbell Co., Kentucky, age 80. (see HOPSON)

vi. James Orville, born July 1918, Somerset, Pulaski County, Kentucky. Married August 1940 Juanita Johnson (1919-2005), daughter of Marion Kelly Johnson and Julia E. Brumagen; two children. Jim died February 8, 1968, Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky, age 49.

vii. LIVING

1910 census: not found, should be in Mercer County.

1920 Pulaski County census shows this family as follows:

Ransdell, Sterling, age 30

Agatha, 35

Sarah 11

Anna 9

William 8

John G. 6

[Beulah] Frances 3

James 1

Photo:

Sterling & Omah Harp Ransdell 1941

at their house on Erlanger Road

After Agatha’s death in September 1936[3], Gilbert Sterling married Omah Harp, daughter of John D. and Laura Harp of Lexington, KY, in December 1939. They lived in Erlanger, Kentucky, during their marriage. Omah died May 1948 in a Cincinnati, Ohio, hospital, and was buried in Lexington, KY.

Photos:

Sterling & Laura Ransdell 1951

Sterling & Laura Ransdell 1961

His third marriage was to Laura Johnson Shade of Lexington, KY, daughter of William D. Johnson and Mary J. Gooch Johnson, widow of Cloyd C. Shade, on October 25, 1951. During their marriage they lived in Lexington. Laura died October 28, 1961[4].

Sterling died April 10, 1969[5], in Covington, Kentucky, and is buried beside his first wife and the mother of his children, Agatha Mattingly Ransdell, at Highland Park Cemetery, Ft. Mitchell, Kenton Co., Kentucky.

Photo—thanks to J. Ransdell!

Gilbert and Agatha Ransdell Tombstone

* * * * * *

Sterling, as he was called by his family, grew up in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in the old family homestead that had belonged to his mother’s parents, Garrett and Anna Eliza Terhune. Although there were six sons in the family, there was a great difference in some of their ages, the youngest one, Hugh, not coming along until the three older ones had already married. Sterling was probably closest to his older brother Miller and the next younger one, Burnice. Harvey was eleven years younger than Sterling, followed by J Lee and then Hugh.

Sterling went to the Cloyd School in Mercer County through the eighth grade. There he met Agatha Frances Mattingly, and though she was four years older than he was, they were married just before his 18th birthday on December 19, 1906. I asked him how he and Agatha met, expecting some romantic story, and he said, "Oh, she was one of the neighborhood girls." She always called him by the childhood nickname of “Brud.” Agatha was apparently called by the nickname “Gaither.” That name appears in one place on their marriage bond, and among the family history papers of her half sister Sudie Mattingly Wills there is a note “Aunt Gaither Mattingly half sister to Sudie, married Ransdell.” However, my mother never mentioned her mother having that nickname.

Sterling took up farming in Burgin, Kentucky, and there the couple’s first three children were born: Sarah Evelyn in 1908, Anna Belle in 1910, and William Arthur in 1912.

At that time, Sterling was hired by the Southern Railroad and the family moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where their fourth child, John Gilbert, called J.G., was born in January 1914. As a new man with the railroad, he apparently had to go to whichever railroad terminal they wanted to send him. He moved to Ludlow, Kentucky, where their fifth child, Beulah Frances, was born in January 1916; and then to Somerset, Kentucky, where the last two children were born: James Orville in 1918 and the youngest son in 1921.

For some reason, perhaps just because he was a railroad man, he acquired the nickname “George” and many people knew him only by that name.

In January 1921, the family moved to Erlanger, Kentucky, and though they lived in several different houses there, they remained in Erlanger permanently (except during Sterling’s third marriage, when he lived in Lexington).

They were active members of the Erlanger Methodist Church.

Arthur was the first of the children to marry. He and Nellie Jackson Randolph were married in 1931, but she died in 1935 of tuberculosis. Sarah married William Warnke, a lawyer, of Bellevue, Kentucky, in May 1934. They had three children, before Bill died of a sudden heart attack in September 1940, at the age of 35. Sarah was then only two months pregnant with their fourth child. Arthur remarried in 1936, and they had three children.

Agatha’s health was poor for several years, and she had extremely high blood pressure. On September 26, 1936, she died of a stroke at age 50. She lived to see only the first one of her grandchildren. Anna Belle, J.G., Beulah, Jim, and the youngest son at 16, were still living at home at the time of their mother’s death. When I was talking with all of these people, my aunts and uncles, to gather information for this biography, none of them was able to tell me anything about their mother, other than that she was quiet and not well most of the time.

In September 1939, Sterling married a lady from Lexington, Kentucky, Omah Harp. (As far as I know, this was her first marriage.) She came to live with him in Erlanger, but she never liked it there. She was a perfectionist housekeeper and an excellent cook. She always called her husband “Mr. Ransdell.”

During 1940, Anna Belle, Beulah, and Jim got married, and in 1941 the youngest son married, leaving only J.G., who remained a bachelor all his life.

Beulah, who had been the family housekeeper, was the first to leave home. She married the Reverend Thomas J. Hopson, Jr., the son of the minister of the Erlanger Methodist Church, on February 21, 1940. Then, in August 1940, Jim married, and they had two sons. In September 1940, Anna Belle married Stewart Bush, and they had two children.

All of Sterling’s children called him Pop, and when his grandchildren came along, many of them, including my brother and sisters and me, did the same. Some of the others called him "Pa-pa."

Omah died in May 1948. For the next few years, Sterling and his son, J.G., lived together in the house on Erlanger Road.

Then on October 25, 1951, Sterling married a widow from Lexington, Kentucky, Mrs. Laura Shade. She worked as a secretary in the maintenance department of the University of Kentucky for thirty years, and Sterling went to live with her in Lexington.

The years in Lexington were pleasant and happy ones for them. Since Laura was so active with her job and church work, Sterling couldn’t help but follow suit. He had retired from the railroad, but he got a part-time job as a parking attendant in one of the University’s parking lots, and jokingly referred to the tiny attendant’s booth as his “office.” He joined Laura’s church and became active in the Men’s Brotherhood. Laura’s many friends became his and the two of them spent ten enjoyable years together.

Laura died just after their tenth anniversary, on October 28, 1961. He really wanted to remain in Lexington, where he and Laura had so many friends, but his children were all in northern Kentucky, and they convinced him to sell the house and come up there to live. He finally did so in late 1962, buying a house on Lafayette Circle in Erlanger where he lived with J.G. for the rest of his life.

Laura Shade Ransdell & Cloide Shade tombstone

During the last years of his life, he was surrounded by his children, 23 grandchildren, and at the time he died, 16 great-grandchildren.

He died on April 10, 1969, at age 80 in Booth Hospital, Covington, Kentucky. Burial was beside his first wife, Agatha, in Highland Park Cemetery, Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky.

Personal recollections of Pop:

My earliest memories of Pop and Omah are visiting them in their house on Erlanger Road. Omah would prepare the most elaborate dinners I had ever seen or tasted, with everything from the table setting to the last radish rose a masterpiece -- or so it seemed to my young eyes.

Pop was a big, robust man, unfailingly in good spirits, who doted on his grandchildren. He teased and kidded and just enjoyed life immensely. He told me once that he had never in his life taken a drink nor sworn an oath.

Pop and Laura’s lovely home in Lexington was a favorite visiting place for our family on occasional Sundays. It was about a two-hour drive to Lexington from Covington on old Route 25, so we didn’t make the trip too often. When we did, we were always warmly welcomed, even though six noisy kids tramping around her house must have been something of a strain on Laura, who never had any children of her own. But for Pop’s sake, she loved all of us.

Laura had a huge and wonderful collection of shoes -- not the kind you wear, but glass and ceramic and porcelain, of every size and description. It was fascinating to see all those tiny, delicate shoes in their special shelves all through her house and Laura often showed us particular favorites and told us about them. She left her collection to the University of Kentucky when she died.

Pop often prepared his own special recipe for meatloaf when we visited. He always kept us laughing at the table. When he drained his iced tea glass, he’d mutter, “I’d like some more iced tea, but I’d choke to death before I’d ask for it.” When a dish was brought to the table piping hot, he’d taste it and say, “You must have cooked this twice. You couldn’t have got it this hot the first time.”

He liked to take a long look at the shoes of some growing boy and ask, “Did both of those come in the same box?” Needless to say, he pulled that one on Mac, my husband, who wears a size 13.

Pop had a sweet tooth and not much interest in exercise, so he was heavy most of his life. His years as a conductor on the railroad had contributed to his inactivity. He told me once it was just like the song:

Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill,

He never worked and he never will,

Just ride, ride, ride.

That, he said, is what he did on the railroad, just rode that caboose, waving back at the kids who stood along the tracks.

When I was a teenager, he told me more than once that he’d love to see one of his granddaughters study to be a nurse. I’m so glad he lived to see my sister Margie graduate from nurse’s training. (In fact, he helped pay her tuition.) And, later on, Anna Belle’s daughter became a nurse.

After Laura's death, while Pop was living alone in their house in Lexington, I stayed with him for several months in early 1962, just before my husband Mac got out of the Army and joined me in Lexington where he would attend U.K. I got to know Pop better than ever during that time, and we had some nice long talks. At the time I wasn't thinking about preserving his reminiscences for the family history, so I'm sure I haven't remembered everything he had to say. I do remember how much he missed Laura.

Pop died at the age of 80 in April 1969. I remember at his funeral, Reverend Deering quoted the scripture, “He came to his grave in the fullness of age.”

Sources of information:

Conversations with Gilbert Sterling Ransdell (1888-1969)

Conversations with his daughter, Beulah Ransdell Hopson (1916-1996)

Conversations with his brother, Burnice Ransdell (1891-1980)

Letter from his cousin, Natalie Terhune (1906-1991)

More family pictures—thanks to D. Cheatham

and C. Rote!!