Raymond Roscoe Rice
Raymond Roscoe Rice was born in Monongalia County, West Virginia, in January 1872. His parents were H. F. Rice and Susan E. Rice of Morgantown. He had at least three sisters and four brothers.
In 1895 he was 23 and working as a merchant in Morgantown. On 26 September 1895 he took out a licence to marry Elma S. Smith, 18, the daughter of Isaac Smith. On 2 October 1895 I. A. Barnes, a minister of the Methodist Protestant Church, married them at Morgantown. Their son Philip Henry was born in 1896, and their daughter Mary Ruth on 9 July 1903 at Lorentz, in Upshur County. By 1907 they had four children.
Raymond left the store for the pulpit. He became a minister of the Methodist Protestant Church, a branch of Methodism that had split away in 1830 over the power of bishops. About 1905 the church sent him to Newburg, a railroad town in Preston County, and he was pastor there for two years. In September 1907 he fell ill with typhoid fever. A Mr. Newcome and a Miss Dawson nursed him, and he died in the parsonage at Newburg on 20 September 1907, aged 35.
His body was taken to Morgantown, where his father lived, and buried at Oak Grove Cemetery. Mary Ruth was four. His stone there reads "Rev. Raymond R. Rice, 1872-1907" and carries the square and compasses of the Freemasons.
Children
Mary Ruth Rice (1903-1977)
Sources
West Virginia Archives & History, Vital Research Records, birth record of Mary Ruth Rice, born 9 Jul 1903, Lorentz, Upshur County, West Virginia
Proves: Names Raymond Roscoe Rice as father of Mary Ruth Rice, born at Lorentz, Upshur County.
West Virginia Archives & History, Vital Research Records, birth record of Mary Ruth Rice, born 19 Jul 1903, Lorentz, Upshur County, West Virginia
Proves: A second register entry for the same birth at Lorentz names the father as R.R. Rice. It gives the day as 19 July instead of 9 July.
Find a Grave, memorial 148759267, Mary Ruth Rice Turner, Mount Zion Cemetery, Rohr, Preston County, West Virginia
Proves: Links Rev. Raymond Roscoe Rice (1872-1907) as her father, alongside her husband Clarence Edgar Turner and her children.
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Cite: Heirology, "Raymond Roscoe Rice (1872-1907)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/raymond-roscoe-rice-1872-1907-c62264.