Russell Archie Ramage (1891 - 1974)

Born 31 Aug 1891 in Hughestown, Luzerne Co, PA

Ancestors

Husband of Elva Caroline (Brobst) Ramage — married 18 Sep 1924 in Hancock NY

Descendants

Died 5 Mar 1974 at age 82 in Prescott, Yavapai Co, AZ

Biography

Died 5 MAR 1974. Whipple Veterans Hospital, Whipple AZ. ^[1]

Buried Mountain View Cemetery, Prescott (Miller Valley), Yavapai Co, AZ. ^[2]

Occupation: HS Teacher, Principal.

Education: journeyman carpenter; teaching certification, Bloomsburg State Normal School, PA 1917; BS in Education, Northern Arizona Normal School, Flagstaff, AZ ca. 1934; MS in Educational Administration, Fort Collins CO ca. 1938.

Religion: Lutheran.

Census: @N2498@.

Marriage

Husband Russell A. [Archie] Ramage.

Wife Elva Caroline Brobst.

Marriage

18 SEP 1924.

Hancock NY. ^[3]

Child: @I237@.

Child: Thelma Louise Ramage.

Cause: Multiple mini-strokes, bronchitis, heart failure.

Note: #N154.

Research Notes: @N1811@.

Russ Ramage was a journeyman carpenter, later a high school wood shop teacher, high school principal, school superintendent. • Russ always used only his middle initial & wouldn't tell anyone his middle name. • He was born in Hughestown PA, a mining town in a once fertile farming valley, where his father & paternal uncles worked in the anthracite coal mines. • Family lore had it that after the RAMAGE family had come from Scotland to Canada & farmed there (in West Oxford Township, Ontario: Concession 5, Lot 4, in the middle of the southern part of the township of W Oxford, just S of Sweaburg), they moved down into Pennsylvania & had a farm, but it was undermined by a coal company & they were forced to sell out. Russell told his daughter Janet that his grandfather was promised a job at the pit head for life, as watchman, & his sons went into the mines. • Russell started work when he dropped out of elementary school (about 5th grade) after his dad developed blacklung disease. After 2 years in the breakers, Russ became a mule boy in the mine. • About age 15, circa 1906, he became a carpenter's apprentice to his maternal uncle Ernest SIMMEN. By age 18, Russ was a journeyman specializing in finishing & cabinetry. • Russ caught up his education in nightschool, which was provided by the school district for working children. He played sandlot baseball, and a local store owner Pete SCHMALZ contacted Bloomsburg State Normal School, which gave an athletic scholarship to Russ to play baseball and basketball. [Note: Pete SCHMALZ was a cousin, Pete’s mother being Russ’s greataunt Katie SIMMEN who m. Ernie SCHMALZ.] • Russ did high school courses at Bloomsburg plus two years of teacher training for his lifetime certificate in PA, dropping out a semester now and then to do carpentry to support himself and his widowed mother. He graduated 1917. • At Bloomsburg Russ played first violin in the orchestra. Later, in Arizona, he was in the American Legion Drum & Bugle Corps, playing bugle and drums. • In WWI both Russ and his younger brother Jesse were in the Army, Russ in the mounted Field Artillery from 16 Sept 1917 to 7 Dec 1918, ending as a Lieutenant. • He taught woodshop in Tennessee for 2 years, then at Raton NM, Wilcox AZ, and Prescott AZ. He finished his Bachelors degree at the University of Arizona and the Normal School in Flagstaff before going to Greeley and Fort Collins CO for his Masters in school administration. • When first living in Prescott, Russ and Elva rented an apartment in on Montezuma St. until 1934, then a house on N. Mt. Vernon for one year, finally a house on Goodwin St. In the spring of 1941, they bought a house at 501 Hassayampa Dr. • He became the boys' counselor at Prescott High School and served as school superintendent during WWII, then became the high school principal when the superintendant returned from military service. Russ retired as principal about 1956. He had maintained his membership in his original carpenters union in Pennsylvania. • Russ’s favorite pastimes were hunting, especially small bird hunting (quail and doves) and fly fishing for trout. He was a lifelong member of the National Rifle Assoc. • When he died in 1974, four years after Elva, his funeral was held at the Methodist Church and his body was laid next to hers in Mountain View Cemetery, outside Prescott in the area called Miller Valley.

Notes

Note N154.

• Source: S1 Death certificate

Sources

1. ↑ Source: #S1
2. ↑ Source: #S1
3. ↑ Source: #S1004

• family