FRANCIS WILLARD RANES

 

Nov 11, 1957

 

Funeral services will be conducted Tuesday for Francis Willard Ranes, 40, R. R. 4, Mt. Vernon, an elevator operator of Mt. Vernon Milling co., who died at 5:55 p.m. Saturday (9 Nov 1957) in Deaconess Hospital in Evansville four weeks after he had been crushed under an elevator in the milling company.

 

The courageous fight of injured man for life and his progress at intervals had been supported by the prayers and wishes of a legion of friends in the Mt. Vernon community where he was born and spent his entire life.  As a devout churchman, orchardist, farmer and mill employee, he was generally respected and loved.

 

The body will be moved at noon Tuesday from the short Funeral Home to the General Baptist Church, of which the deceased was an active member and a deacon, there to life in state until the funeral service at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the church sanctuary.  Burial will be in Bellefontaine Cemetery.  Rev. Temas Taylor, pastor of the church, will be officiating clergyman.

 

Surviving are the wife nee, Mary Martha Reeves; three daughters, Barbara Judith 16, Nancy Vivian, 14, and Ann Farris, 9, and two brothers, Rev. Harold W. Ranes, dean of men in a Bible College at Fort Wayne, Ind. and J. Kenneth Ranes a local contractor and farmer.

 

The deceased was a member of a prominent Mt. Vernon family.  His father was Dr. John R. Ranes, a very successful physician who died late in 1951.  His mother was Sadie Arnold Ranes whose death occurred early in 1956.

 

Following graduation from Mt. Vernon High School, the mill elevator operator of recent years attended Oakland city College and Purdue University.

 

He returned to the Mt. Vernon community to be associated with his father and brothers in Rane-bo Orchards and in farming.  For a period of several years he was a substitute rural carrier of the Mt. Vernon post office.

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Originally submitted by Betty Sellers