Memories of Mount Pleasant, Part Two

More of Charlotte's recollections of her childhood.

Mother was a Catholic and we children had all been baptized in Michigan. But there was no church in the area of Mt. Pleasant. Mother invited the priest stationed at Columbia, Tennessee to say Mass in our home once a month, and he did. Then Mother found about six or seven Catholic families in the area who had not been to church in years and whose children had not been instructed in the Catholic faith. So she had these families come to our home EVERY Sunday, and she conducted Catechism classes and prepared the children to make their First Holy Communion.

My oldest brother (Arthur) and I began our education in the public school (Hay Long Elementary School). When we lived in town, we were one-half mile from school. When we lived in the mining area, we walked more than 2 miles to school.

Charlotte and Arthur

Memories of Mount Pleasant, Part One

In 1976, Charlotte A. Raymo wrote down some of her memories of growing up in rural Tennessee sixty years prior.

My family lived in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, a small mining town in middle Tennessee. I have vivid memories of these years. My mother made all my clothes and hers, and many things for my brothers (like pajamas, play clothes, “Buster Brown” suits, etc.) Whenever she made me a new dress, she would make one just like it for my largest doll. Mother was a good cook and we celebrated birthdays and holidays with special food and decorations—she made life exciting for her children.

Roger and Chester

Halloween

Emma Visits

In 1913, Arthur's mother Emma Handeyside, the sixty year old widow of Theodore Raymo, visited her son and family in their new home in Mount Pleasant, Tennessee.

Emma with Roger and Charlotte.

Emma with her son Arthur and grandchildren eating Cracker Jacks.

First Day

Arthur Joseph Raymo, on his first day at Hay Long Elementary School, Mount Pleasant, Tennessee in September, 1912. Scanned from a 4x6 inch glass plate negative.

Gone South

In 1911, Arthur Elsworth Raymo and his family moved from Dearborn, Michigan to Mount Pleasant, a small mining town in central Tennessee. Arthur accepted a new position as the superintendent of the Rhum Phosphate Mining Company.

This c.1912 portrait shows Arthur and Margaret with their four young children; Arthur, Charlotte, Chester and Roger.

Filling in the holes

There is very little in the "Charchive", either photos or documents, from the period of time between Arthur and Margaret's marriage in 1905 and their move to Tennessee in 1911. I have been able to piece together a few bits from other sources which give us a glimpse at their early married life.

The young couple had four children in quick succession:

1. Arthur Joseph Raymo, born 3 July 1906
2. Charlotte Alma Raymo, born 28 November 1907
3. Chester Theodore Raymo, born 27 March 1909
4. Roger Daniel Raymo, born 19 August 1910

I've looked up the birth registrations for the four children of Arthur and Margaret in the microfilmed records of Wayne County, Michigan. This microfilm (FHL 1377681) is available through the Family History Centers run by the LDS Church.

Arthur was born in Nankin. Charlotte, Chester and Roger were born in nearby Dearborn. On Arthur's birth registration, his father's occupation is given as "farmer." By the time Charlotte was born, Arthur Sr. was a "bookkeeper" and living in Dearborn.

The family also appears in the 1910 United States Federal Census of Dearborn, Michigan.

Arthur, Margaret and their first three children (Roger was not born at the time they were enumerated) are living in a rented house on Garrison Avenue in Dearborn. This is before the automobile boom so Dearborn is still a small township. In addition, Arthur's occupation is listed as bookkeeper for the Electric L(ight?) Company.

Also living with them is Margaret's 18 year old younger sister Josephine Merrow. The rest of the Merrow family had moved to Tennessee a few years prior. Josephine would later become a nurse for the U.S. Army.

The family's stay in Dearborn was brief as Arthur soon accepted a new job which also brought him and his family to Tennessee.

The Newlyweds

Margaret Merrow grew up in Detroit. Her father, Joseph D. Merrow, was a tug boat captain on the Great Lakes. He retired from that profession in 1894 and moved his family to Swift's Corner, north of Wayne. There, Joseph ran a general store and was a postmaster. It was there, presumably, that Margaret met Arthur.

Margaret A. Merrow married Arthur E. Raymo on 2 Aug 1905 at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Wayne, Michigan.

For their honeymoon, they travelled to where else? Niagara Falls!

The Raymo Farm

This 1897 photograph in Nankin, Michigan shows Emma and Theodore Raymo with their entire family; all their children, their spouses, and grandchildren. Emma and Theodore are seated in front.

From left to right are:

1. Herbert Avery and wife Evalena Raymo with their two sons, Leland and Ray.
2. Hazel Raymo
3. William Ralph Raymo and his wife Fannie Norris
4. Arthur Elsworth Raymo
5. Charles Hayes and wife Nora Ann Raymo with son Theodore
6. Leslie Theodore Raymo with wife Edith Smith

The Raymo farmhouse was on a 120 acre parcel of land that was divided equally between Theodore and his brother Owen Raymo after their father Mitchell died.

In the 20th century the farmland was eventually all sold away and was subsumed by the creeping Detroit suburbia. The Township of Nankin became part of the city of Westland in 1966.

Here is, approximately, where the farmhouse stood today, as seen in Google Street View:


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Emma and Theodore

Arthur Elsworth Raymo's parents were Emma Handeyside and Theodore Raymo, shown here in a 1895 photograph. They were married on 20 March 1870, when Emma was only 17 years old and Theodore was 28.

Emma was the daughter of English immigrants, Rodger and Ann Handeyside from Yorkshire. Emma grew up on a farm down the road from the Raymo home in Nankin, Michigan.

Theodore was the son of Mitchell Raymo and his second wife Margaret Denniston. Theodore was descended from many generations of Québécois. He lived his whole life in Nankin, maintaining the family farm and also serving as a school teacher.

Together, Emma and Theodore raised six children:

1. Evalena Raymo (1871-1906)
2. William Ralph Raymo (1872-1951)
3. Nora Ann Raymo (1874-1907)
4. Leslie Theodore Raymo (1876-1932)
5. Arthur Elsworth Raymo (1880-1926)
6. Hazel E. Raymo (1886-1974)

Arthur Elsworth Raymo

My great grandfather Arthur Elsworth Raymo was born in Nankin, Michigan on 19 January 1880. Nankin was a small farming community west of Detroit. Arthur was born on the farm of his parents, Theodore Raymo (1841-1906) and Emma Handeyside (1853-1936).

This photograph, a tintype, was taken c.1885 in the same Detroit photographer's studio that the portrait of his future wife Margaret was taken. As seen here, it was common for the photographer to hand tint the cheeks of his subjects after capturing their image.