Person Page - 1191

     The following is a list of grand and great-grandchildren and in-laws of the James Riley Quinn family who served in World War II:


Dean E. Wright, son of Orveta and Ross Wright.
Ross E. Beason, son-in-law of Jennie and Harmon Fox.
Bernard L. Dunshee and Ray R. Dunshee, sons of C.J. Dunshee, husband of Nora
William A. Sandstrom, son-in-law of Orveta and Ross Wright.
Jay E. Foland and Hal E. Foland, grandsons of Mattie Quinn Rinehart.
Mary M. Beason, daughter of Jennie and Harmon Fox.
H.S. Bergtholdt, son-in-law of Arthur and Pearl Quinn.
R.C. Bryan, son-in-law of Joe Quinn.
Eugene West, grandson-in-law of Joe Quinn.
Louis C. McPike, son-in-law of Jennie and Harmon Fox.
Leo C. Quinn, son of Arthur and Pearl Quinn.
Richard D. Andrews, grandson-in-law of Joe Quinn.
Quinn Rinehart and Jack K. Rinehart, grandsons of Mattie Quinn Rinehart.
Max Eugene Quinn, son of Will and Ada Quinn, died August 16, 1944, in France.


M/Sgt. Martin H. Quinn, World War I. Early Life of James Riley Quinn - Sometime during the early months of 1842, Martin Quinn and Miss Bridget Riley were married in Dublin, the capitol city of Ireland, a country of the British Isles. After the usual short honeymoon of that day, this young couple began the planning of a home and future life. They had read and heard a great deal of the United States of America, of its wonderful opportunities, growing cities, broad plains, fertile valleys, large rivers, high beautiful mountains and varied climate, so they began to save their money, and plan for an early voyage to America.
They secured transportation on a passenger sailing vessel in December 1842, and set sail from Liverpool, England for their new home. After a voyage of several weeks, they arrived at New York, the metropolis of America, sometime during the month of January 1843, very happy for a safe voyage to the land of the free and untold opportunities. After a few days spent in giving the city the once over, they secured a place to live and a job and went to work full of hope for a greater and better way of life.
On March 15, 1843, a brown-eyed baby boy came to bless the home of these young people to whom they gave the name of James Riley. The name "James" seemed so old and grown up for the little fellow, so they nicknamed him "Jimmie," the name that stayed with him until he was grown.
Not long after the birth of their son, this young couple moved to Madison, a frontier town on the north bank of the Ohio River, in the state of Indiana. As Jimmie remembers, his father owned and operated a small grocery store and was doing a good business, when he was stricken and died. This was a great blow to the young wife and three year old son.
About two years later, his mother married to a man by the name of O'Riley and two daughters were born to them. From what information Jimmie could give us, his stepfather was a saloon man, and was away from home a great deal of the time. He was very indifferent to the comfort and needs of his family. As for his little stepson, he had no love for him and often-times treated him cruelly, so he spent a lot of his time, when not in school, playing and making friends away from home.
He and some of his boy friends spent much of their time on the Ohio River, fishing, swimming, boat riding, and having a good time as boys will. Jimmie became quite an expert swimmer, for a boy, and at the age of eight years, he, with two older boys swam the Ohio River from Madison, Indiana to Milton, Kentucky. He said, "I thought I would never make it when I was about 200 yards from the bank," but with that Irish spirit and determination he reached his goal. As he lay on the bank completely exhausted, he looked back across the broad river and in his mind I hear him say "Once is enough for me, hereafter when I cross the Ohio, I'll ride on a ferry boat."
He spent a lot of his time either bumming his way, or working his passage up and down the river from one town to another on steam boats, for at that time most of the passenger and freight transportation was on the river.
One of the severest blows of Jimmie's life came when he was nine years old. His mother, a boy's best friend, became ill and died, leaving him alone, and he was truly alone as he did not know of another relative, except his two half-sisters. Several months prior to his mother's death, his stepfather was thrown from a delivery wagon in a run-away, receiving a head injury, greatly affecting his mind. As he was a Catholic, his two daughters, Jimmie's half-sisters were placed in a convent. He, being afraid of being put in a Catholic school for boys, left home and for a time became a little waif, sleeping and eating wherever he happened to be.
Finally, a man who owned and operated a grocery story came to his rescue, by securing for him a home in the country with a family by the name of Gibbs. There were two old maids in the home who took quite a fancy to the freckled faced, brown eyed Jimmie, and were kind to him; the first real affection he had known since his mother's death.
He was very happy in his new home. They owned a flock of sheep, which he had to herd during the summer months. Of course, being a boy, he would rather have gone fishing.
While the family provided for him a comfortable home, they did not have sufficient interest in him to send him to school, so all the schooling he had was before he was nine years old. He said the old maids spent some time with him, teaching him to read and write, which was a great help in his future life.
He lived with this family until he was sixteen years of age, when he went out into the world on his own. In his search for employment, he drifted as far north in the state as Kokomo, where he was working when the Civil War broke out among the States. Between 1886 and 1887 James R. Quinn and Family as Pioneers - In December of 1886, Daddy sold the Missouri farm and began preparations to move to western Kansas. By Feb 26, 1887, all the arrangements were completed and the caravan consisting of two covered wagons, two teams, two cows, one dozen hens, one rooster, and old Shep, the family dog, was ready to go. The hens and rooster were in a coop attached to the side of one of the wagons.
About 10 o'clock in the morning of February 26, we bid good-bye to relatives and many of our good Missouri friends. Mother took charge of one wagon and Daddy the other. Nora, Art and Jennie climbed into the wagons and Joe and I were assigned the unpleasant duty of driving the cows, not on horseback but a-foot.
Our oldest sister Mattie, who was 18, had a boy friend and a good job, so we left her behind and to this day she still lives in Vernon County, Missouri. As we left that morning, I'm sure it was in the mind of each of us, "western Kansas or bust".
The first day we traveled about eighteen miles and camped on the Mormaton River near Ft. Scott, Kansas. The camping-out was a new experience for the family as well as the stock and the dog. We had quite a time cooking our supper over the camp fire, and getting the stock, dog and chickens fed and settled down for the night. I am quite sure Mother and Daddy did not sleep too well that first night.
We were all up by sun-up the next morning. There was a thin sheet of ice in the water bucket. A little chilly to be camping out, but we soon had a big camp fire going. Breakfast over, cows milked, everything packed again, and horses hitched up, we were off on our second day with Joe and I trailing behind driving the cows with Shep's help. We soon found when making camp for the night three things were necessary, food and water for the stock, food for the family, and plenty of wood for the camp fire.
We traveled about the same number of miles each day and the experiences of each night were about the same except that the number of covered wagons increased at the camp grounds each time. I remember the night we camped on Walnut Creek in a beautiful camp ground near Eldorado, Kansas. There were about fifty families camped there for the night. All were nice, friendly folks, going west to find homes; to become the pioneers of western Kansas, eastern Colorado and "No-Man's-Land."
After about eight days, we reached Inka, Kansas, where we visited a few days with Uncle Roy and Aunt Hattie Tremaine and family. Hattie was a sister of mother's. They homesteaded on 160 acres of land in the summer of 1884, and were living in a half dugout at this time. While we were there, Daddy read in the Kansas City Weekly Star that Congress has passed an Act opening "No-Man's-Land" for settlement. From the location on the map, we felt this would probably be a better place to live than western Kansas.
Our experiences on our trip after we left Uncle Roy's was much the same, except that the farther west we went the more scarce were trees and water. Also, fewer towns and farm houses. Therefore, we had trouble finding necessary things for comfortable camping, such as feed, food, water and wood. While traveling on the plains near Greensburg, Kansas, we were attracted by what appeared to be pools of water ahead of us on the prairie and in the road, but as we drew nearer it would disappear, which excited our curiosity. Sometimes in this optical illusion, a sage brush or weed would appear to be a tree in the distance. We found out later that this was called a mirage.
Before we left Uncle Roy's, we had not quite made up our minds whether we would go on to western Kansas or to "No-Man's-Land." When we reached Meade, Kansas, we all went into a huddle and decided we would turn south to "No-Man's-Land". The first time we used cow chips to cook with was when we camped on Crooked Creek, south of Meade for our noon meal. It was a real experience and a lot of fun for we children, but mother held up her hands in horror at the idea. However, the time came when she thought nothing of it.
We arrived in "No-Man's-Land" about 4 p.m. Saturday, March 19, 1887. The first family we met was at the home of Mr. Bart Husted. They lived in a sod house. In the yard was on open well of good cool water and I remember Daddy said after he took a drink from the bucket which he drew from the well by a rope and pulley: "Good cool water-a good place to live". In Missouri, our well water was so hard and gyppy we could hardly use it.
Mr. Husted told us it was about five miles to the Mexican Aurora, a little creek which would be a good place to camp-plenty of wood and water. By the time we arrived there it was dark. We struck camp, built a big camp fire of cottonwood branches, cooked supper and bedded down for the night. The next morning when I awoke, I stuck my head out from under the wagon cover and caught sight of the sand hills. In my excitement I gave Joe a punch in the ribs. He awakened and took a peak too. We hurriedly dressed. Thinking we had found a real hunting ground, we loaded the old double-barreled shot gun and started over the hills and thru the cottonwood valleys, with the gun cocked and finger on the trigger, expecting most any kind of an animal to spring out of the plum bushes and grape vines. However, we were doomed to disappointment, for all we killed was a kildee down on the Aurora. Mother had breakfast ready when we returned to the wagons, hungry as bears.
There was a little, new town across the Beaver River about two miles from where we were camped, called Beaver City. After breakfast, Daddy rode one of the horses over to take a look at the place and obtain a little information from the folks of the town. He like the people very much but did not think much of the town, due to the sandy streets, too many saloons, no school nor churches.
The old freight trail leading into Beaver from the north, for about three miles was a bed of soft sand, almost impassable with a loaded wagon. After Daddy returned he and Mother talked the situation over, and decided that since Dodge City was our nearest railroad and all our freighting would be to and from there, that we should locate on the north side of the river and the sand hills.
Monday morning we drove back to Mr. Husted's. As he was acquainted with the country, he helped us to pick out and stake our claim of 160 acres. We were all very much elated about our new home, but little did we realize what was in store for us in this new pioneer country. Mr. Husted charged Daddy $3.00 for his trouble. We thought he was a little high, but there was nothing we could do about it.
It was about 3 p.m. March 21, 1887 when we drove onto our claim. Everyone got busy unloading the wagon out on the black burned-off prairie. We were 75 miles from a railroad, a mile or more from the nearest neighbor, and eight miles from Beaver City, the capitol of "No-Man's-Land," a strip of country 34 miles wide and 164 miles long.

     Orveta Pauline Quinn Wright - The last but not the least of the children born into the J.R. Quinn family was a little girl. She was named Orveta Pauline, and made her advent in the four-room sod house on the Quinn ranch March 5, 1898. She, the last of the ten children was as welcome as the first. Naturally she was given a lot of attention by the older members of the family, and Mother was quite concerned for fear her little daughter was growing up to be a spoiled child. Nevertheless, you cannot spoil a good child. She spent her early life on the ranch and was as happy as if she were living in a mansion in some large city.
She attended the Cottonwood School until her parents moved to Beaver, where she had two years of high school work. One of the sacrifices of the pioneer youth was to acquire knowledge without much schooling. Most of their education came from hard knocks, varied experiences and a desire to know. They learned by application and an observing mind. The pioneers are truly self-made people.
Orveta was united in marriage to Clifford Ross Wright at her parents' home in Beaver on October 5, 1916. Their first home was in Beaver where Ross was an employee and agent of the Kan-O-Tex Oil Company for a year or more. He then worked for Sinclair Oil Co. of Beaver for a number of years acting as local agent first, afterwards as a special agent covering several states. They were transferred from Beaver to Liberal, Kansas, where they were stationed for some time, then were transferred to Dodge City, Kansas, a larger town with a better trade territory.
About this time, the company needed a competent agent in the south. They were sent first to Sumpter, South Carolina, then to Melbourne, Florida for a time, then to Tallahassee, the capitol city of Florida, and from there to Daytona Beach on the Atlantic coast. They remained in this work until sometime in 1930, when Ross resigned. Orveta, who was a reserved sort of person, became very efficient in making friends in all this moving around to keep up with her traveling agent. It had a tendency to develop patience too, of which she now has an unlimited supply. The family were homesick for their relatives and friends back home so they came back to the big open spaces of the Panhandle of Oklahoma, although they valued their sojourn in the South as a very interesting and educational experience.
I can hear Veta laugh as she told of the rude huts, small fields-farmed with one mule or sometimes an ox. The country roads were lined with carts, buggies and wagons hauling their produce, such as cotton, tobacco, etc. to market and in turn bringing back meat, flour and sorghum. She told of her children taking a ride in an ox cart-going down the road at a snail's pace. Their stay in Florida was much more enjoyable than in South Carolina. The cities they lived in were modern, and the people they contacted in their work were friendly and very hospitable.
After they returned to Beaver, Ross felt he wanted to get out of the oil business, but he had been in that work too long, so eventually signed up with the Phillips Petroleum Co. as special agent for the Oklahoma Panhandle with headquarters at Guymon. They remained there until August 1935, when he resigned, sold their Guymon property and moved to California. At this time they live at 10330 McNerney Ave., South Gate, in a comfortable home which they have recently built. They own and operate the Alameda Transfer Company, owning five trucks at this time and doing a lucrative business, making hauls to and from any place in that trucking area.
Orveta has been a member of the Christian Church since childhood. As much as possible, in her moving around, she has borne her part of the church responsibilities, and done what she could to raise her children in the light of the Gospel. With her cheerful and motherly disposition, she has made many friends. Many who at times have felt the need to lean upon her for moral support in times of trouble and sorrow.
Their three children have been their life and joy. They are Dean, born February 1, 1919, Beaver, Okla; Lois Lee, born February 17, 1921, Beaver, Oklahoma; Kirby Ross, born September 13, 1937, South Gate, California. If there is any one of the Quinn family who is the gypsy type, we will have to put the brand on baby sister. She has really gone places.

     Served in World War II.