Ray Gish

I think that Ray and Jessie married in May 1920.

Cemetery record Gish Gaylord Ray 1887 1963 Section G (Husband of Jessie) Gish Jessie Alice 1899 1975 Section G (Wife of Gaylord)

Ray was born in Waterville, Minnesota, in May 1887, the oldest child of Andrew Sheets Gish, Jr. and Amanda Spencer Gish. They left Minnesota when he was a baby traveling by train to Washington state. When they arrived in March 1888 Andrew said they stepped off the train into mud up to his knees. He told the family later that if he'd had the money he would have gotten on the train and returned to Minnesota. They reached Chehalis on March 19th before Washington was a state.

He worked as a farmer and a logger growing up in Onalaska.

In 1917 his WWI Registration Card describes him as crippled in both hands. He had several fingers severed while working in a sawmill. At the time he waa providing transportation for school children, probably by horse and wagon. He also hauled milk in a horse and wagon. He went to work in the shipyard in Bellingham later. While there hIs first wife died in the flu epidemic. They had one child who then lived with her Schmitt grandmother until Ray remarried. Once he had someone to take care of her he requested her return. The grandmother refused so he entered their house through Virginia's bedroom window and kidnapped his own daughter! HIs wife, Jessie, did most of the farming while he logged often living away from home during a job. He built a house on Gish Road in Onalaska, but they eventually bought a farm in Curtis where they lived until they purchased a larger farm just down the road on the Chehalis River where they lived the rest of their lives.

He died because of emphysema.

He never went by Gaylord! He was always Ray or Papa. I grew up within a mile of their farm and spent a lot of time with them. His middle name was Ray - not Raymond in spite of what some people have posted! His granddaughter Karen