Raymond Earl Ricketts, 97, died October 20, 2010.
Raymond was born July 12, 1913 to Gilbert and Sarah Bertha Smith Ricketts in Webster County, Missouri. He graduated from Fair Grove High School in 1933 and the University of Missouri in 1937 with a B.S. in Agriculture.
Raymond married Zetta Mae Miller on May 1, 1938.
He was a Charter member of the Fair Grove Lions Club, served as president of the Fair Grove School Board, long time member of the Fair Grove Methodist Church serving in various leadership capacities and a member of Alpha Gamma Sigma Agriculture Fraternity at the University of Missouri. He worked for the U.S. Farmers Home Administration, taught World War II veterans, and retired from Southwest Electric Cooperative after 26 years of service as Manager of Power Use and Public Relations.
He was preceded in death by his wife Zetta, parents Gilbert and Bertha, and three brothers Vernon, Lawrence, Ralph Ricketts, and an infant sister.
Raymond is survived by three sons and their families, Rex and Sondra Ricketts of Hallsville, Misssouri, Van and Norma Ricketts of Buena Vista, Colorado, and Kim and Linda Ricketts of Salisbury, Missouri, two sister-in laws Lillian Ricketts of Hallsville, Missouri Hildreth Richmond of Walla Walla, Washington, eight grandchildren, fourteen great-grandchildren, and a host of additional friends and relatives.
He credits his brother Vernon for assisting him with finances to attend the University of Missouri. Vernon loaned him a little money and he also worked at the Library at the University for twenty five cents per hour. After graduation he worked for FHA US Farmers Home Administration and he and Zetta lived in Branson, Missouri and he made loans in Taney County. He said those loans usually would be around $800.00 and helped farmers buy some chickens (sold the eggs), milk cows, pigs and tomato seed to raise tomatoes to sell to the canning plant.
He moved his family to the 160 acre farm in 1947, where there was no electricity for the first six months. He developed a dairy farm that would eventually become a nationally recognized registered Jersey herd and would provide the financial support for the three sons to attend and graduate from the University of Missouri.
In addition to farming he worked full time for Southwest Electric Cooperative serving as Power Use and Public Relations Manager. He taught farmers how to use electricity for: milking machines, refrigerators, electric heat, electric pumps for wells which led to running water in homes and indoor plumbing. He really helped make people’s lives better.
In 1920 when he was six years old his family moved in covered wagons to Kansas where they rented a large farm and worked for 5 years to get enough money to move back to Missouri and buy a farm. In 2009, encouraged by Sondra Ricketts, he wrote a story about this trip which has been submitted to Reminisce Magazine.
A visitation will be held on Sunday, October 24, 2010 from 4:00-7:00 P.M. in Greenlawn Funeral Home North. Funeral services will be held in the Fair Grove Methodist Church at 10:00 A.M. on Monday, October 25, 2010. Burial will follow at Mount Comfort Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Fair Grove Lions Club or the Fair Grove Methodist Church.
Reminisces of Raymond E. Ricketts
The Move to Kansas
I am the youngest of four brothers and still going at 96 years. My family lived on a rented farm in Missouri until 1920 when we rented a larger farm 120 miles away in Kansas. We had some relatives also rent some land near where we were going and we all went together. My oldest brother and one of my cousins left in a hack (buggy) a couple of days earlier than the majority of us because my brother needed to finish two more years of high school at McCune, Kansas. In Missouri at that time the high school near us only went to the tenth grade.
On March 1st, 1920 we had eight covered wagons going from SW Missouri to our rented Kansas farm. All of these wagons were pulled by a team of horses. There were about twelve adults and 10 children riding or driving these wagons. I was seven years old when we left Missouri. One of my brothers and a cousin rode in the wagon that my mother drove. It was to be a four day trip all in the covered wagons. On the second day we ran into a heavy snow storm near Carthage Missouri. A family saw us and insisted we spend the night with them and we did. By the next morning that area had received twelve inches of snow. The snow did not delay us so the next morning we continued on our trip. We did not take cattle, but we did move our machinery in the wagons. We also took a small herd of turkeys and my dad told us young boys we would have to drive them all the 120 miles, which we believed. He was a big tease.
We stayed in Kansas nine years where we went to a one room grade school. The name of the school was Mulberry School in McCune, Kansas. The house we lived in was fairly nice. Of course, we had no running water. We had a dug well which was about 12 feet deep. We let milk and butter down in the well to keep it cool. The well water was so hard that the soap we used did not help to get the clothes clean. We lived close to a small creek and my mother would do the washing in the creek. She used a wash board and twisted the clothes by hand. We had another creek about two miles away and the family would go there to swim on Sundays. We would also go to town on Saturdays to sell our cream and eggs and then we would buy groceries with the money.
After sharecropping we were able to purchase a one hundred twenty acre farm in Missouri. So after seven years we started moving back to Missouri. My Dad and I made two trips in two wagons. I was fourteen years old and drove one of the wagons. My parents kept me out of school to help with the moving. On one of the trips back to Missouri we stayed one night at Plano, MO. In a stone building there they were having a lodge meeting and my dad and I attended. They decided to have a kangaroo court and they charged my dad with breaking down the gate between Kansas and Missouri. He was convicted and he had to buy everyone candy and cigars.
I entered school at Fair Grove, Missouri as a freshman in high school and later graduated from college from the University of Missouri with a degree in Agriculture in 1937. My oldest brother graduated from High School in Kansas in 1922. He later joined the navy and graduated from Annapolis in 1929. He was captain of the boxing team for two years at Annapolis. He made a career of the navy and was on the West Virginia at Pearl Harbor when it was hit. He became a four star Admiral and was second in command of the US Navy when he passed away. Later he had a battle ship named after him “The USS Claude V Ricketts.”
Another brother of mine graduated from the University of Missouri in Agricultural College in 1929. Later he became a professor at the same University. His first job though was teaching high school during the depression. He was to receive sixty dollars a month, but only received thirty. I also had another brother who went one year to college and then decided to earn his living in construction.
My oldest brother financed my four years in college. My sons and daughters-in-law all graduated from the University of Missouri. Also all of my grandsons and granddaughters graduated from college and two of my great grandchildren. Almost all of my grandchildren graduated from the University of Missouri.
I have some great memories about living in Kansas and moving back to Missouri. I met my wife at the school in Missouri where I attended High School, so obviously moving back to Missouri was a good idea. My Dad, who could neither read nor write, knew that education was important and encouraged all of us.
Raymond E Ricketts