SPRADLING, RAYMOND EDWARD

by Frances Jane Blackburn

Entry F400 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Mullen Baseball Team, '20s. Back row: Eugene Spradling, Ray Spradling,
Berlin Adams, Ernest Tschauder. Front: Shorty Fosdick, Chas. Cleavenger,
Vic Henningan, Jack Jeffords.

                 (1895-1969)

It was by invitation from his brother
Arthur Allen Spradling, Agent of the CB&Q
Railroad in Mullen, that Ray, born in Union,
Mo. Aug. 25, 1895, came from St. Louis, Mo.
He was a teenager and had been working for
the Brown Shoe Company there. His father
and mother lived on a farm in Union, and had
raised six sons and one daughter there. Art
needed a helper so Ray was hired. This was
just prior to World War I and the railroads
were very busy hauling cattle, machinery,
goods and people.

He met Cherry Edna Catron (1895-1984)
and they were married on September 12,
1916, in Denver, Colorado. They had two
daughters, Frances Jane (Dec. 1, 1918) and
Harriet Elizabeth (Apr. 28, 1922) .

Ray bid on various jobs within the railroad
system, which meant that he moved around
from station to station. First was at Hecla,
then to Anselmo, next to Seneca, where the
girls grew up.

Ray was a tall man with medium brown
hair - Railroad men called him "Sprad".

He was a member of the Masonic Lodge in
Mullen and played baseball on the Mullen
team.

While at Hecla he filed on a homestead east
of town. A cyclone destroyed the house and
buildings.

In 1945 Ray transferred his CB&Q service
to the Southern Pacific Railroad in Califor-
nia, and after a time became Dispatcher at
the Oakland terminal, the position from
which he retired. His active service with the
railroads measured over fifty years - he was
witness to the rise of the rail systems to
ultimate usage, to computerization, and to
speedy decline, giving way to automotive
transportation.

In 1963 Ray and Edna moved to Santa
Rosa, California, to be near the girls. Ray died
of a heart attack the day after Thanksgiving
1969. Edna had a stroke on Dec. 3, 1979 and
lived 4 1/2 years in a convalescent hospital in
Santa Rosa. She died there on September 12,
1984. Both are buried in Santa Rosa Memo-
rial Park.