Memorials › Henry M. Ray

Henry M. Ray

1865 – 29 Apr 1932

Birth	1865
Death	29 Apr 1932
Cemetery	Caddo Cemetery Joshua , Johnson County , Texas , USA
Added by	KEN on 06 Nov 2024
FaG	https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87452961

Bio

Henry's cremated remains were claimed and he is now buried in the Ray Family Plot in Caddo Cemetery Joshua Johnson County, Texas. November 6, 2024 Henry's cremated remains were never taken after his death and are still available at the Oregon State Hospital to be claimed by anyone who is related. More information about unclaimed cremains at OSH is available at http://www.oregon.gov/oha/osh/Pages/cremains.aspx A book by David Maisel and a short documentary film by Ondi Timoner & Robert James, both entitled "Library of Dust" also provide more information. Henry was born in Nebraska in the summer of 1865. His mother, Eliza Jane Price, was born in 1834 in Indiana. His father, Richard Franklin Ray, who spent his childhood and young adulthood in Mercer County, Missouri, was born in Tennessee in 1832. Eliza and Richard's children born before 1865 were born in Missouri and those born later were native of Nebraska. The children included: George Thomas (born in 1853), Joseph H. (1855), Sarah Anna (1858), Samuel (1860), William (1863), Henry (1865), Albert (October 1869), and Hattie Maude (1872). It is believed brother Albert was one of triplets, two of whom did not survive infancy. During the 1860 census (before Henry was born) his parents and older siblings were living in Modena, Mercer County, Missouri. At the time of the 1870 census (taken in August), Henry was 5 years old living with his parents and siblings in Stove Creek, Cass County, Nebraska. Henry's father was a farmer. In the mid 1870s, the Ray family moved to Texas where Henry's mother died on 2/23/1878 in Bosque County. During the 1880 census, Henry was 14 and living with his father and most of his siblings in Johnson County, Texas. Perhaps brothers George and Samuel did not move to Texas because were living in Peoria, Illinois during the 1880 census. Henry's father married Margaret Eliza Hudson. She had children by one of her previous marriages, but she and Richard Ray did not have children together. Henry's dad died on 1/8/1897 and was buried in Joshua, Johnson County, Texas. Two years later brother William died at the age of 36 in Texas on 3/29/1899. He was buried in the same cemetery as his father. Henry and all surviving siblings eventually moved to Oregon except Albert who stayed in Texas, raised a family, worked as a mechanic, and died of bladder cancer in Tarrant County, Texas on 9/6/1947. In the early 1890s, brother George moved to Oregon with his wife and children. By 1900 they were farming in Lane County. Brother Joseph was living in Oregon by the mid 1890s and by 1900 was working as a painter in Jackson County in southern Oregon. He was living in Hillsboro before 1910. By 1900 brother Samuel and his family were living in Dallas, Polk County, Oregon where he owned a livery stable and feed store. Sister Sarah married Alsom Souther, lived in Texas until sometime between 1900 and 1905 when she and her family moved to Hillsboro, Oregon where Alsom worked as a carpenter. Sister Hattie married Reuben Morris, lived in Texas, then Oklahoma before moving to Oregon about 1910. It is believed Henry moved to Oregon with his sister Sarah Anna Sother or brother Joseph. In 1905 Henry was living in Hillsboro, Oregon and on 7/5/1905 at the request of Sarah and Joseph, Henry was admitted to the Oregon State Hospital, a residential facility in Salem, Oregon for the treatment of people with mental illness. News accounts said he was 39 and "suffered from imbecility from birth." The article went on to say, "About 9 years ago, he was injured on the head as the result of a runaway." It is not known what that event was, but it would have occurred about 1896 before his father's death. Henry was listed among the patients at the state hospital on the census of 1910, 1920 and 1930. Data from the censuses is mixed when it comes to giving clues about the type and level of his problems. The census of 1880 made no mention of Henry having a disability although "insane, idiotic, deaf, blind and disabled" were choices that could have been selected. On the 1910 census hospital staff indicated he could not read or write, but the 1930 census reported he was literate. In the 1920 census he was a "poultryman" in the asylum farm which made him one of the very few patients who were listed with a job. It is noteworthy that beginning in 1908 the state of Oregon operated the Oregon State Institution for the Feeble-Minded, a residential, quasi-educational institution in Salem charged with educating people with developmental disabilities. In 1908 patients were transferred to the new institution if they were determined to have cognitive disabilities rather than mental illness. Henry was not transferred which would make one believe his mental illness outweighed any cognitive disorder he may have had. After being a patient at the Oregon State Hospital for over 26 years he died there of cerebral arteriosclerosis on 4/29/1932. He was 67 years old. Twelve years earlier brother Joseph died in Oregon in 1920, but most of Henry's siblings survived him. Samuel died in Oregon in 1933. Sarah died in Oregon 1938. George died in Oregon in 1944. Albert died in Texas in 1947. Hattie died in Oregon in 1959.

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