Some Ribley History

As I mentioned Jean’s dad had a character that was almost schizophrenic — being utterly charming at times and curt and impolite at others. My personal opinion is that this is in part at least the instability of his childhood. I’m not sure I know just where he was born but it may have been in Tennessee where the family was for awhile living in some sort of commune. Then later the family spent time in San Marcial, New Mexico.

Checking with Jean, I find that her dad was actually born in San Marcial and the experience with the commune occurred after the move back east from San Marcial.

His sister Alta, older than he, was born in Tennessee before the residence at San Marcial. One time Jean’s dad related a strange, somewhat disjointed account of some sort of incident between him and his sister at San Marcial. There appeared to have been some sort of physical squabble between the two, and from the account, Jean’s dad seemed to indicate that he had had the impression that this spat or quarrel, whatever it was, had some sort of connection with his sister’s death, which occurred at San Marcial.

I felt vaguely uncomfortable during his telling of it and didn’t pursue the subject by some questions, to try to clarify the indefiniteness of the story. Jean had never heard the story at all, and her understanding was that Alta had died form “brain” fever, whatever that was.

The family experience at the commune turned out unsatisfactorily. I don’t know if the idea of joining the commune came from Jean’s grandfather or grandmother — I would suspect the latter. Apparently the investment the family made in joining was lost either in whole or in part. The family then moved to Denver.

Jean’s dad at times related incidents of his childhood there, such as his days as a newsboy. Presumably his dad worked on the Moffatt tunnel, although I think when we tried to investigate this it turned out there were two projects by this name. I think he was injured when working on the tunnel, also he was somewhere employed as a strike breaker and had some difficulty subsequently in finding employment.

The family eventually ended up in Richmond [California] for a few years prior to the San Francisco earthquake, with Jean’s grandfather working (I believe) for Santa Fe railroad. Here it was that he was drenched when a water tank broke at the time of the quake, he went to work anyway, contracted pneumonia and died.

Whereas Jean always knew a fair amount about her grandmother’s past history (perhaps because she lived on for quite some time after her husband’s death) she, and her father for that matter, knew surprisingly little about her grandfather’s life. It wasn’t until after Jean’s dad died that Jean’s research into genealogy developed what she now [h]as ascertained about his early life in Baltimore and later in Ohio.

There were a few garbled pieces of information that Jean’s dad had about this period but contact with the rather numerous Ribley relatives in Ohio had been completely lost. Despite Jean’s success in turning up information about her grandfather’s youth and history up until the age of 20 or so, there is a gap from then until he married her grandmother, when he was about 40. Jean hasn’t been able to pin down anything in this period.

There was a family rumor that her grandfather had a sawmill in the Truckee area which burned down, also that he had a considerable sum saved either before or after the event. In 1990 Jean and I spent a couple of days around the Truckee area trying to investigate these rumors but we developed absolutely no information or leads.

I think that prior to Jean’s grandfather’s death he had arranged for her dad to start the apprentice program at Santa Fe railroad. He was probably in his early to mid-teens when this occurred, thus he had rather limited formal schooling. During the year or so he went to school at Richmond, the principal of the school was a man by the name of Walter Helms who was a longtime acquaintance and mentor of Jean’s dad. Helms sponsored Jean’s dad when he joined the Masons, which he was active in during most of his life. Jean’s dad did well in his apprenticeship and later in his work at Santa Fe, where he fairly early reached the status of night shift foreman — a position he held when he was married.

Because of personality conflicts with a superior he quit Santa Fe and during the 1920s and early to mid 1930s, he suffered from under-employment or lack thereof. I have come to the opinion that Jean’s dad needed more than anything else a competent and trusted advisor or experienced person that he could turn to for advice and consultation. He should never have left Santa Fe, and if he had not, the family experience would have been entirely different and much better.