9TH GENERATION SARAH EVELYN RANSDELL AND WILLIAM HENRY WARNKE

9^th Generation: Children of Gilbert Sterling Ransdell

Sarah Evelyn Ransdell

( 1908-1993)

William Henry Warnke

(1905-1940)

Sarah Evelyn Ransdell was born 7 September 1908 in Burgin, Mercer Co. KY, the oldest of 7 children of Gilbert Sterling and Agatha Mattingly Ransdell. She married (1) in May 1934 William Henry (Bill) Warnke, born in 1905 in Campbell Co., KY, only son of William Henry and Lena E. Helck Warnke. They had four children:
i. William Henry Warnke, b. 14 Oct 1935, d. 10 Mar 2007; m. LIVING

              8 Sept 1956.
         ii. Barbara Ann Warnke, b. 2 Aug 1937, d. 6 Jan 1994
        iii. LIVING
        iv. LIVING

Bill Warnke died at the age of 34 on 7 Sept 1940.

Obituary in KY Post: Services for Wililam H. Warnke, 34, 348 Lafayette Ave., Bellevue, who was president of the Campbell County Sunday School Assn., will be held Tuesday ... Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery. Warnke died Saturday in his home. He had operated a grocery with his father, William H. Warnke, at 200 Division St., Bellevue, and was well known in Campbell County. He was a member of Asbury M.E. Church, Cold Spring and belonged to Henry Barnes Lodge No. 607, F. and A.M. Warnke was a graduate of the Cincinnati YMCA School of Law. He is survived by his wife Sarah; his mother and father, and three children,

My Personal Memories of Sarah Evelyn Ransdell (1908-1993)

I’ll always remember Pop’s oldest daughter, my aunt Sarah. How I admired that lady! She was left a widow with three children and one on the way in 1940, and she raised those four kids alone, on Social Security and what she could earn sewing and taking in ironing. Eventually, she married again, three times as a matter of fact, and raised some horrified eyebrows in the Ransdell family when each marriage ended in divorce. Sarah had become as strong and self-sufficient as she needed to be during her years of widowhood and single parenthood, and the role of wife as defined by her generation was never again for her. Sarah was a wonderfully talented seamstress and needleworker (my mother always envied her for that) and though she never finished high school, she held a number of very responsible jobs. She had a sharp tongue and a gift of gab that made her somewhat unique among her brothers and sisters, and they often didn’t know what to make of her.

Her husband Bill had been a Mason, and Sarah was very active for many years in the Eastern Star.

She lived in excellent health to the age of 85 when she died quite suddenly and peacefully of a stroke. She spent her last years living with her daughter Barbara in Arizona, slim and silver-haired, always attractively dressed and coifed.

Photos—thanks to C. Rote!

Sarah Evelyn Ransdell 1920s

Anna Belle, Lee, Beulah, J.G., Sarah 1987