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)

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