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There is a Ransom family mystery of some interest that has remained unsolved until last week. I knew my grandfather as Jay Arthur Ransom. He was born in Higginsville, Missouri, on October 25, 1890. He died in Atlanta, Cass County, Texas on November 10, 1986. He claimed his father was Charles Victor Ransom and his mother was Anna Mary Ransom. He claimed his parents or grandparents were from Ireland and reported that his paternal grandparents were Daniel and Anastasia Ransom, and his maternal grandparents were Abram and Jershua Gale, though I'm pretty sure he never knew them.
Higginsville was a coal mining town and his father wanted him to work in the mines. Because of this, he ran away from home at age 10 and claimed to have grown up in Pawnee, Illinois, where he finished school in 1905. He did not maintain contact with his family. He said he had a brother named Forest, and sisters named Florence, Pansy, and Dorothy. He said his father had a brother named Tom Ransom and a sister named Mary. As best I can piece together his story, he lived around Pontiac, Michigan, until about 1910, when he went West to Bisbee, Arizona, after things did not go well with a young woman he wanted to marry.
He served in France in the U.S. Army during World War I, and later served a hitch in the U.S. Navy. He claimed he last saw his parents in the Portland, Oregon area in the early 1920's. He was supposedly in Miami, Florida, when the big hurricane hit in 1926. He lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he ran a restaurant and night club in the early 1930's (during prohibition). He came to Northeast Texas to work in the oil field after the Rodessa, Louisiana oil boom in 1936. He met my grandmother here and they eloped and lived in Pine Bluff, and Little Rock, Arkansas until about 1946. They moved back to Northeast Texas shortly after my father was born and lived the remainder of their lives there.
My father searched unsuccessfully for references to his family origins in various places. Shortly before my grandfather died, he told my father, "I'm not who your mother thinks I am." He went on to explain that Jay Ransom was an orphan who died in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1910; that he took that name, abandoning his own name because of some difficulty involving a woman. He said his real name was Arthur Dehl. He was highly medicated at the time and was 96 years old. We never knew if he was lucid or hallucinating when he told this story. My grandmother knew nothing of this and was very tight lipped about their relationship. She passed away a few years later.
For years my father searched for evidence to refute or confirm this story and kept running into dead ends. After my Dad passed away, I too searched unsuccessfully for any evidence that would help me better piece together his story. This summer I spent some time in Bisbee, Arizona and went through every library and museum in Cochise County but found nothing with Ransom or Dehl listed.
Last week, I decided to search again using a genealogy site on the internet. Instead of Ransom or Dehl, I searched for his maternal grandparents and found Abram Gale listed in the 1850 Census at age 11 in White Lake, Oakland County, Michigan. He is listed again in the 1860 census in the same location. In the 1870 census he is listed in the same township but with a wife and two daughters. One of the daughters is Anna M. Gale, the name my grandfather had given as his mother's name. In 1880 they are all listed again in the same location. The 1890 census was destroyed by fire but the 1900 census lists the Abram Gale family without Anna M. At some point she had married Charles V. Dean which matches the name my grandfather gave for his father except not Ransom, not Dehl, but Dean. So my father must have misheard my grandfather which is understandable given the circumstances. In the 1900 census Arthur Dean, my grandfather is 10 years old and listed as a stepson living with another family in another town. In the 1910 census he is 19 years old and living in Bisbee, Arizona under the name Arthur Dean. Since census data only contains the most basic information I searched for confirming documents and found a World War 1 draft registration card for Arthur Dean with the same date and place of birth as my grandfather Jay "Arthur" Ransom.
This has been a major break through for those in my direct family who knew of the story. The mystery still remains as to when he abandoned his old name and why. There are also more details to this story which I have not included as I don't have them locked up tight just yet. I know he was married multiple times and had children prior to his marriage to my grandmother. I'm curious about finding relatives who might know something of his life prior to 1940. As more records become available online and I gain proficiency in my research, I'm sure to piece together more information. He was a roustabout no doubt and I look forward to finding out more, especially of his time in Arizona. He once told me, "I've probably made millions of dollars in my life. Most of it I spent on good whiskey and bad women; the rest I just wasted."
Cheers.
Travis
If anyone has any details about Arthur Abram Dean or Charles Victor Dean and their families I would certainly appreciate having it.
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