Sidney Ray Rainer Sr (1903 - 1976)

Born 1903 in White River Township, Madison County, Arkansas

Ancestors

Husband of Marie Ella Johnson — married 30 Sep 1920 in West Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma

Descendants

Died 7 Mar 1976 at about age 73 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: T Goad [send private message]

Biography

Sidney and his brother Cecil were given up to oilman Charles Page around the 1st of March in 1908 by their maternal grandmother Rhoda "Parker" Puett Jackson and her new husband John Jackson.

Widow Rhoda Parker and widower John Jackson had been neighbors in Madison County, Arkansas but could not comfortably marry there. They both had several children from their former marriages plus Rhoda's 16-year-old daughter Maud had had 2 children out of wedlock (brothers Sid and Cecil). There were so many mouths to feed and teenager Maud would have a hard time to find a husband if people knew she had two illegitimate kids.

Meanwhile, recently widowed oilman Charles Page was alone and living in his offices on the 4th floor of the First National Bank (rooms 414 and 415). On hearing of this rich and lonely oilman, Rhoda made a plan.

Rhoda and John Jackson moved from Madison County, Arkansas separately with their families and met up in Wagoner, Oklahoma where they married on the 27th of February 1908 and had photos taken of her and her grandsons Sid and Cecil and her daughter Maud, the mother of the 2 boys. She stuffed copies of the photos in the pockets of the boys. Within a few days of the marriage, Rhoda and John covertly took the boys to Charles Page's offices in the First National Bank Building in downtown Tulsa and waited for a busy time in the office and quietly abandoned the two boys there. Charles Page had not yet started his famous orphanage and he did not even have a house at that time. Luckily for the boys, Charles Page decided to take care of them. For a while, he moved the boys into an apartment in the Renault Building in downtown Tulsa. Then about 1909, Charles Page married Lucile Ann Rayburn 1880–1973 and they all, the boys and Charles Page and his new wife, moved into a large house just west of downtown Tulsa on the corner of Olympia Avenue and 3rd Street which would later be renamed Charles Page Boulevard.

The boys arrived in Charles Page's care a few years before Page started his orphanage. Page soon had 3 more abandoned boys including the 2 Nolan brothers (Luther and Leonard) in his care. Then shortly after, Charles Page saved the orphans of a bankrupt Tulsa orphanage, The Cross and Anchor Home, which precipitated creating the Sand Springs Home Orphanage. Charles Page brought a large horse-drawn hay wagon to load up the children of the Cross and Anchor Home and brought them all to Wekiwa Township where Page would found the town of Sand Springs. Son Sid, Cecil, and the other three boys joined the other children at the Big House that Page built in Wekiwa and served as a real comforting home for the kids.

Charles Page and his employees never knew the true surname of the boys Sid and Cecil and the boys were initially given the surname "Jack" and the boys are listed in the 1910 US Census as Sidney Jack and Cecil Jack. Charles Page assigned two men, Mr. Antle and Mr Breeding, to find the true surname of the boys. They looked through the photos and notes that had been found in the boys' pockets in 1908 and found references to St Paul, Madison County, Arkansas. Mr Antle and Mr Breeding had a difficult trail to follow but after visiting St Paul, Madison, Arkansas and showing the photos of Rhoda Parker, John Jackson, and Bessie Maud Puett to the locals they concluded that the boys were the sons of Maud Jackson and probably two different men. They seem to have chosen a name for the father of a man who had long left Madison County, Arkansas and who could not possibly be the real father, Jim Rainer. Moreover, it seems clear that the boys have different fathers. Maud, the mother was unmarried and only 12 when she had Sid in 1903 and then she had Cecil a little more than a year later.

So not long after the 1910 Census and after Mr Antle and Mr Breeding did their research, the boys' surname was changed to Rainer.

However, after DNA results of 7 of Sid's grandchildren and 2 great grandkids, it appears that the biological father of Sid was a member of the Ritchie family of Madison County, Arkansas. Furthermore, it appears that this Mr Ritchie had had several children out of wedlock. His string of children seem to have been born along the towns that border the railroad spur that winds through the Ozarks from Springfield, Missouri down to Fayetteville, Arkansas and then eastward into Madison County Arkansas where the major industry was lumber for railroad ties and for telegraph poles. Madison County was famous for it tall straight trees. Perhaps Mr Ritchie worked with this lumber and road the train to deliver the lumber to market in Springfield, Missouri.

Sid never learned to read. Moreover, he was tall for his age and the Home estimated him to be older than he was. They put him in 3rd grade when he was 6 years old in 1909 and he floundered and suffered from severe earaches. After that he dropped out of school forever. Even though he was only 9, he was a master at handling horses. He became a cowboy for the Sand Springs Home's farms and worked his whole life for that institution. As a boy he ran the cattle at the SS Home ranch and as a teenager he worked as a life guard at the SS Home Sand Springs Lake Park. Then he worked several years for the SS Home Water Bottling Company as a delivery driver in the Tulsa area. And he worked in the early construction of the Home's factories and other buildings. In the 1930's he became the head of maintenance at the SS Home.

Died at Hillcrest Hospital, Tulsa, OK buried in Sand Springs, OK

Sources

• 1910 US Census, Oklahoma, Tulsa County, Wekiwa TWP, (In Charles Page Orphans' Home under name Sidney Jack (the orphanage didn't know his real surname), family 67.

• 1930 US Census, Oklahoma, 908 N Roosevelt, Sand Springs, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, family 111.

• 1940 US Census, Oklahoma, Osage County, Black Dog TWP, household 20.

• FindaGrave.com, Memorial# 13111455, Woodland Memorial Park Cemetery, Sand Springs, Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

• Polk City Directory Tulsa 1922, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1923, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1924, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1925, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1928, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1930, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1932, Polk City Directory Tulsa 1933,

• Tulsa County Courthouse Marriage Records, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 13 Sept 1920, Film Number 001020740.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Timothy Goad for starting this profile.

Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by Timothy and others.