One Member of "The Greatest Generation" - Raymond Hill Beamer, Jr.

Raymond Hill Beamer, Jr., son of Raymond Hill and Maud Lucy (Dunbar) Beamer, was born 24 December 1917 in Cherokee Co, Kansas.  He died 23 August 2003 in Topeka, Shawnee Co, Kansas.

"When he had a chance to be transferred to Hawaii he gladly accepted it. He enjoyed many things about his life in Hawaii. They got to travel to the different islands and he was thrilled at seeing an active volcano. He sent us pictures of it in eruption. My husband knew Dr. F. X. Williams, an Entomologist stationed in Hawaii at that time and suggested to Ray he go to see Dr. Williams. They were more than kind to the boy away from

home. When we sent him movies of the family for his Christmas, he could take them to the Williams’ and they would project them for him. They offered him many kindnesses.

     On Dec. 7, 1941, Ray took his pack and climbed a nearby mountain alone, just hiking. While on the mountain, he began noticing unusual activities back toward camp. At first he thought it was just a practice. But when it continued he saw something strange was going on and he hastily sped down the mountain to Camp to see the last of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. He has never liked to talk about it very much. He admits we all did foolish things. We had had no training for such an emergency. Everyone knew nobody would dare attack the US. I think he could have stayed in Hawaii for the duration of the war but after a time he felt he wanted a change and asked to be transferred. He was transferred to a camp in California and after some months training there was sent overseas.

     One observation he made after war was declared may be of interest. He felt that before Pearl Harbor, the residents of Hawaii looked down on the men in uniform. They were careful not to have their daughters meet soldiers they passed by in their cars and did not offer rides when soldiers were hiking into town. But after Pearl Harbor they couldn't do enough for a man in uniform. . .

     November 13, 1943, Ray and Eleanor were married in a simple but lovely service in the Reilly home in Topeka. Eleanor followed Ray from camp to camp while he was in the USA. When he was sent overseas to the European Theater, Eleanor came home to live with her mother and sister, Lena, while he was away. On December 1, 1944, Beth was born. She was a darling baby and Eleanor was a lovely mother; but it was hard to have the father so far away.
      And of course the uncertainty was agonizing for Ray. Ray was in the Battle of the Bulge and after the Armistice was signed he was in the Army of Occupation in Germany for some time. The training he received from the GI Bill was a Godsend to him. . ."

[Source:  The Lucy Beamer Memoirs - RAYMOND BEAMER, JR essay, pages 5-6]

"He taught us to love our country and told many stories (over and over!) about the war--how he stood on Oahu overlooking Pearl Harbor (it was his day off) and watched as the bombing of WWII began. Later, he landed in Normandy and with his battalion fought his way to Berlin. As he made his way from "foxhole" to "foxhole" with his machine gun, he found a ferret which became his pet. It is still hard to picture this soldier hiding in the ground with a ferret peeking out of his pocket, while crocheting his much loved doilies."

[Source:  Beth Beamer Deakins' A Eulogy to Raymond Hill Beamer, Jr., August 2003]

    

Wordless Wednesday - Hallowell, Kansas Farewell Party

Not Thanksgiving gathering, but a family/friends gathering - Farewell party to the John Beamers, August 1909, Lem Holmes' home in Hallowell, Cherokee Co, Kansas. 





Photos:  Lucy Beamer's Beamers Photo Album.

Amanuensis Monday - The Shooting: 4 versions

I have been given four versions of the same incident.  Tallie (Talmage) was the son of Taylor and Iona (Rodenberger) Dawson.  Clara (Rodenberger) Spieth and "Mother" [Elsie (Rodenberger) Beamer] were younger sisters of Iona (Sis).  The Dawson, living in Scottland, Edgar Co, Illinois, were visiting family near Hallowell, Cherokee Co, Kansas. 

Dec 1980 letter from Florence (Beamer) Bratton
to Albert Leroy Dillon

"There is a reason for which I was given the name "Florence".  According to mother, Tallie (Talmadge) and wife Florence were visiting at Aunt Clara's.  Mother was pregnant with me at the time and the three couples had gone into Hallowell to a church meeting, leaving the Dawson cousins at Aunt Clara's and my three teenage brother and sisters at home.  The three of them decided to dress up or disguise themselves to go over to scare the Dawsons.  When Florence answered the door she recognized them but called to Tallie, who always carried a gun since he worked for the railroad, to bring his gun and quick.  He came out prepared for the worst and shot my sister Nellie through the right shoulder.  Hence, my parents named me Florence to show the cousins there were no hard feelings.  Incidently, the bullet went right on through the shoulder and left nothing but two scars.  I know this will not assist in your compiling the history but thought is an interesting story."


Version 2 comes from The Lucy Beamer Memoirs' The John Rodenberger Family essay.
[www.raybeamer.com]

    "One such evening in 1907 came very near tragedy.  Everyone was to gather at the Wm. Spieth home.  The visitors were staying there that night and had their suitcases in their rooms.  As I remember the story, it was near Halloween and the Beamer girls, Nellie and Lora, about 14, decided to dress up in their brother’s (Raymond) clothes and pretended to be robbers.  So when they arrived instead of bursting in unannounced as they would normally have done, they knocked and waited till Uncle Billy came to the door.  He immediately saw the plot so he shouted, “Help! Robbers.”  One of his visiting cousins, thinking him serious, stepped into his bedroom, took a revolver out of his suitcase, rushed to the door and fired.  When Nellie saw the gun pointed at her she ducked.  The bullet struck her in her left shoulder.  If she hadn’t ducked it doubtless would have killed her.

   Multiple confusions reigned for the rest of the evening.  Dr. Hill, the family doctor, was summoned to dress the wound.  By the time he arrived, it was evident that Nellie’s mother (then almost to term with Florence) was in a more critical condition than Nellie was.  When someone told her Nellie had been shot she went to pieces and refused to calm down.  She was sure they were deceiving her; that Nellie was going to die.  Nellie tried to reassure her mother, laughing and joking and telling her she was all right.

   Mother Beamer finally quieted down and did carry her baby to term.  Nellie’s wound healed without particular trouble.  But she suffered with that shoulder all her life. . .I’m sure each member of the family knew which cousin fired the shot; yet in all the times I have heard the story told I do not remember ever hearing his name mentioned.  I like to think everyone wanted to spare him further shame.  It is one of the many incidents I have known of during my life that makes me feel so convinced that there is far more danger of lay people having a gun for protection than the there ever is safety in it.

    When Florence was born, she had some dark specks in one ear.  Mother B. was sure she had marked Florence with powder burns because of her fright.  It was a common belief at that time that a shock or fright experienced by a pregnant woman could cause a birth mark on the baby.  They didn't know that the fetus doesn't develop that way but even after science knew and tried to dispel the myth, many of my parents generation still believed it to be true."

Version 3 was written on the reverse side of a photograph.

Digital copy received from Jeanie Ommerle, a descendant of Clara (Rodenberger) Spieth.

"The Dawsons were friends from Indiana, previous to the R's [Rodenbergers] move to Kansas.  Some of the Rodenberger girls married Dawson; they visited in Kansas several times. Once at night when they (Talley Dawson) were visiting the William Spieths, Nellie Beamer, as a prank, dressed up as a man and went to Wm Spieth's with a gun in hand, pretending a robbery.  Talley, who recently had a gun (unknown to any of the family) shot Nellie in the arm.  She stopped pretending and cried, "Oh, Talley, you've shot me.  Mother (Leo) told this story many times. (Of course, her father, Wm. Spieth, knew all the time it was Nellie!"

The 4th version was in Challis Dawson's letters to his son Gerard Dawson, written in 1947.

page 76
[Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society]

"Two other sisters Rodenberger married two brothers Spieth, Billy and Robert, and another one married a John Beamon, who was more like Doug than any one else.  The Beamons had several children, a water melon patch and a disordered barn yard.  Two of his girls were named Elsie and Nellie, one of whom was accidently shot by my bro. Tally when on a visit there.  Tally had been attacked several times in his duties with the railroad so he fancied himself carrying a pistol, although he never could hit any thing he tried to shoot.  This was an exception though.  Nellie and Elsie played burglar, and tried climbing through his window to frighten him.  Those girls were always up to some pranks.  Tally fired and shot Elsie through the chest.  It nearly frightened Tally to death, so much as that he quit the pistol packing habit.  She recovered.  They had a brother by name Raymond, about Dudley's age.  We all had great fun during those rare summers."

[John Beamer, not Beamon, and his wife was Elsie Rodenberger Beamer.  Their daughters were Nellie and Lora.  Nellie was the one shot in the shoulder.]

Wednesday's Child - Children of Elsie (Rodenberger) & John Beamer

Elsie Maud Rodenberger and John Archibold Beamer married 4 October 1888 in Cherokee Co, Kansas.  They had seven children.  Three died very early in life:  Baby Daughter, John Harland, and Maurice Christopher Beamer.  All three are buried at McKee Cemetery, Hallowell, Cherokee Co, Kansas.

The John Archibold Family by Lucy Beamer

"The next baby, a little girl, was stillborn.  They always thought her death was caused by a fall Elsie had shortly before term.  The next two little boys, Harlan and Morris died in their second summers of the scourge of early childhood, "summer complaint".  The death of these babies cast a deep shadow over the family.  Raymond came to associate large bouquets of flowers with funerals and to his own death he never enjoyed large arrangements of cut flowers.

I have heard my mother say she thought she never saw so sad a woman as Elsie after the loss of their two little boys.  It remained a cloud over her life.  When some years later Florence was born, she never spoke of the future without saying, 'If we raise her'."

[The Lucy Beamer Memoirs on ray beamer dot com]

Infant Daughter Beamer
Dau of Elsie and John
[Photo by Mary Parmele on FindAGrave]

John Harland Beamer, the 5th child of John and Elsie, was born 9 February 1899 and died 22 July 1901. 

The John Beamer Family
Elsie, John, Raymond, Nellie, Lora, Harland
Lucy Beamer's Beamer Family Album
[Courtesy of Ray Beamer]

Lucy Beamer's Beamer Family Album
[Courtesy of Ray Beamer]



John Harland Son of
John & Elsie Beamer
Died July 22, 1901
Aged 2y., 5m. &13d.
Our Baby
[Photo by Mary Parmele on FindAGrave]



Maurice Christopher Beamer, the sixth child of John and Elsie, was born 28 June 1904 and died 28 April 1906.

Lucy Beamer's Beamer Family Album
[Courtesy of Ray Beamer]

Maurice Christopher
Son of
John & Elsie Beamer
Died Apr. 28, 1906
Aged 1y.10m.
Our Baby
[Photo by Mary Parmele on FindAGrave]

The John Rodenberger Heritage by Lucy Beamer

Maud Lucy Dunbar, who strongly preferred to be called Lucy, was the daughter of David and Emma (Thomas) Dunbar.  Lucy was born on 3 February 1893 in Leon, Butler Co, Kansas.  She married Raymond Hill Beamer, son of John Archibold and Elsie Maud (Rodenberger) Beamer, on 19 September 1914 in Lola Twp, Cherokee Co, Kansas.  She died 1 March 1992 in Lenexa, Johnson Co, Kansas.

Lucy left a wonderful legacy to her extended family with a large number of essays.

"The essays are writings of our grandmother, Lucy Beamer, in her effort to ensure that her memories of people and events in her life would not just disappear when she died.I've sorted them into three groups:

• Individual and family historys
• Memories, observations & opinions (and Grandmother had some powerful opinions)
• Reports of the annual entomological field trips that she and Grandfather made around the country with two to four graduate students each summer"

The Lucy Beamer Memoirs

THE JOHN RODENBERGER HERITAGE

I have only one mental picture of Grandmother Elizabeth Spring Rodenberger. I often heard

Mother Beamer's sisters speak of Mother's great need to spend some time with her mother. She would try to do two days work in one day so she could go to visit her mother the next day. She would walk across fields leading one toddler and carrying a baby- no effort was too great. Stories were told of her ironing most of the night after doing the washing during the day; of her taking a sick child even though she had to give it laudanum to keep it quiet. So I have a feeling that Grandmother Rodenberger was a comfortable person to be around. Of course, going was a basic need with Mother Beamer. "To go" was better medicine than any the doctors could give her. So perhaps this love of going was part of the picture I have. Still I like to think she found her mother helpful.

Grandfather Rodenberger (John) continued to be an influence on Mother all her life. She would quote him as an authority on Medications- even to the absurd. Was it from him that we see the predominance in an interest in medicine as a profession in succeeding generations? Two of the Dawson grandsons were MDs, Dixie Dawson was a nurse. And several of the great grandsons and granddaughters are following suit. Mother Beamer often trusted her own judgment in medicine before the doctor's.

I believe there is a heritage here of accurate observation of changes in symptoms, color,

behavior, etc. Is this the reason my husband was such an outstanding taxonomist? Does this heritage give him the skill in physical games he was noted for? Perhaps this enabled him to watch wrestlers practicing and know what they were doing, when they were failing why they were succeeding.

I think Mother B. inherited much of her drive, of her urge to dictate to others- in small things as well as large. She had the keenest eye I've ever worked under. If a garment I made passed her scrutiny, I felt I had succeeded. I've heard my husband say, "All I am I owe to my mother." In this instance it seems to me it was Grandfather John, rather than Grandmother Elizabeth, who passed on the dominant traits.

[Source:   Ray Beamer dot com]

Happy Anniversary - Leo Bessie Spieth and David Ira Beamer, 14 August 1907

Memoirs  The D. Ira Beamer Family, May 31, 1958
Written by Leo Bessie (Spieth) Beamer [20 pages]
"I have been thinking for several months I should write a kind of history of my family - grandparents, parents, and myself and immediate family - for the sake of my children."
[Copy was mailed to my mother by Leo Bessie in the 1970s.]

Excerpts -

Page 10 - "On December 1, 1901, I had my first date.  I was 16 and the young man was D. Ira Beamer.  We didn't date as often as young people do now, usually Sunday night, once in awhile a E. L. party, or a picnic with a group.  Your father drove a white mare he called Queen to a buggy.  I had so many aunts, uncles, and cousins around, there was always somebody to say something about the white horse at our hitching post.  There were times when I wished I didn't have so many relatives. . . A year or so after Ira and I starting dating, he decided to enter the ministry, and as he had not attended high school, he knew he would have to start in, as part of his ministerial preparation."

Page 12 - "The fall of that year came near being the end of our (would you call it) courtship?  He was going away to college and I think he was frightened even of the thought of marriage, and the earning a living in the meantime, so he asked if I would wait for him until he finished.  He was 26 then and we had dated, such as it was, 5 years, and it had been sort of rough for me.  So I made up my mind it was time we should decide and know what we wanted, and if he didn't want me I was going to see what I could do about getting into a music school.  I had always wanted a music education.  So I told him I couldn't promise to wait.  I fully expected him to leave and maybe not see him again.  But he didn't.  Poor Dad.  When I think back I wonder how we ever bought the necessaries of this life.  Anyway, we began our plans to be married the next August.  He came home at Christmas and gave me the little ring with the garnets and opals in it for Christmas.  Then in August (1907) we were married at my home on the farm.  All our relatives and a few friends were present.  The ceremony took place at 4 p.m. with Rev. A. D. Wood officiating and Rev. Hovgard assisting.  We couldn't afford a wedding ring, or so we thought, and you girls know he gave me my wedding ring after we moved to Hartford, . . . We were to go to Baldwin two weeks after the wedding.  Father and Mother Beamer had decided to have a sale and go to Baldwin also. . .



Rev. & Mrs. D. I. Beamer
Linda Dee
Sept. 1950



Leo Bessie's Memoirs, May 31, 1958 - Rodenberger grandparents

Memoirs  The D. Ira Beamer Family, May 31, 1958
Written by Leo Bessie (Spieth) Beamer [20 pages]
[Copy was mailed to my mother by Leo Bessie in the 1970s.]
"I have been thinking for several months I should write a kind of history of my family - grandparents, parents, and myself and immediate family - for the sake of my children."
Excerpts -

Page 1 -"My grandfather, John Rodenberger, and my grandmother, Elizabeth Lowry Rodenberger, came by covered wagon with their family from near Terre Haute, Indiana, to Kansas, near the year 1870.  My grandfather homesteaded on a farm 4-1/2 miles northwest of Hallowell, Kansas, and built a log house; the house had 2 rooms and a loft above them which was reached by a sort of ladder.  Here they lived until after my mother and father were married.
     My grandfather then bought a farm adjoining the first one on the south of a neighbor named Higgins.  My grandfather and grandmother then moved to the new home where there was a six room house.  By this time three of their children were married and in their own homes.  My Uncle Charley, Aunt Iona, and my mother, Clara.  My mother was the third child.  At least two children were born in the new home.  There were 8 children, two boys and six girls."

Page 2 - ". . .I was the only child for 6 years, so I found all my entertainment at home enjoying these things I have mentioned, and visiting my grandparents.  My mother and I must have walked the 1/4 mile between the two places almost every day.  My grandmother made the loveliest molasses cookies, of which I could usually have plenty when there, and she would let me eat the uncooked dough, of which I was very fond. . ."

Page 4 - " . . . When I was ten years of age I had three experience that affected my life a great deal. . .   The third experience was the loss of my Grandmother Rodenberger.  She died after a very serious illness, which was supposedly gall stones.  It was a great loss to me, as I had been able to see her almost every day and it made a great difference in all our lives."

Page 8 - "I remember a party my grandparents had in their back yard when I was small.  It was an apple peeling and cutting party!  The neighbors came, both young and old, peeled and cut apples for making apple butter."

Leo Bessie concluded writing the Memoirs in April 1962 (dated on page 18).  I love her last paragraph which she wrote while living in the Methodist Home in Topeka, KS. 

Page 20 - "Some people wonder what we do with our time here.  That is no problem.  The question is, how will we get time to do all the things that come up to be done."