A Pistol Packin' Mama

 Story Under a Stone: Margaret Hickey, A Pistol Packin’ Mama

By Lynn Bueling

Near the west entrance of the Sheldon cemetery stands a tall slender stone marking the graves of a married couple, John T. Hickey and Margaret Hickey. Each has a story rich and unique enough to feature in separate accounts. We’ll start with the wife.

Part of her story can be gleaned from the pages of The Sheldon Progress. In August 2, 1907 we learn she underwent an operation at the Sheldon hospital. The article went on to say she is doing as well as could be expected. A week later a report stated she had been very low, but took a turn for the better. Then on August 16 her obituary appeared.

Born in Galena, Illinois, in 1862, she was just shy of her 45th birthday when she died. In 1882 she arrived in Fargo to visit relatives, met John, and married him in December. They moved to Sheldon in 1890, where they lived for seventeen years prior to her death.

The writer of the obituary referred to her popularity in the community by stating, “The casket was hidden in a profusion of flowers … No one was more ready to come to the aid of any neighbor in sorrow or trial than Mrs. Hickey. Her unfailing kindness and charity in word and deed won for her the affection and esteem of all who knew her.”

Several years ago one of her relatives sent me a short biography of the family which spoke in part about Margaret. It described her as a very small lady who carried a Colt revolver with her at all times because many unsavory characters wandered about in Sheldon. The family remembered one physical trait about her - she had small feet and had to wear baby shoes until she started school. As an adult she had her shoes custom made in Chicago because she couldn’t find them small enough locally.

One son of the Hickeys earned the nickname “High Speed Hickey” in the early days of race car driving. They said he once broke a track record earlier set by Barney Oldfield. (Someone else can find the statistics for this.) His racing career ended with an accident occurring when a wheel came off his car. He enlisted in the army at the start of World War I and served as a motorcycle courier where once again he suffered injuries from an accident. He didn’t race again.

Part II will appear in a week to feature John T. Hickey, a man who experienced extraordinary events in the Wild West.

Mike Ranney - The Band of Brothers

 

We are posting this as another “Story Under a Stone” from Sheldon, ND. Today, June 6, 2026, marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, an event for which a hometown boy earned fame as a member of the now famous “Band of Brothers.” Myron “Mike” Ranney became a member of E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne in World War II. His father, the publisher of the Sheldon Progress newspaper, wrote this brief, yet gripping mention in his August 20, 1942 issue: “A letter came this morning from my son, Myron, saying he had volunteered for the paratroop division of the army. Myron is nineteen and a former student of the University of N. D. The letter brought a lump in my throat and made it hard for me to work. He was not forced to go. But he loves his own country greater than his own security.”

So begins the story that Stephen E. Ambrose first popularized in his history of the Band of Brothers. The book caught the eye of two Hollywood men - Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg - who brought it further to the forefront with their 10-part HBO miniseries. Both the book and the film tell a riveting tale of men engaging in the prolonged heat of battle.

We’ve learned Company E went through a tough training experience under the guidance of a cruel taskmaster Lieutenant Sobel. The men hated him for it, but on the other hand, some gave him credit for their high degree of fitness when they entered battle. Late in the evening of June 5 the paratroops loaded into 81 C-47s. When they were airborne and looked down to the huge number of invasion ships on the English Channel, one of them remarked “You had to be a little bit awed that you were part of a thing that was so much greater than you.”

Leading E Company was the respected Dick Winters who received the order to destroy a German artillery emplacement of four large cannons that was raining shells down on the landing beach. Those guns were being guarded by a fifty-man platoon, whereas Winters led only a dozen, one of them being Ranney. He divided them into three attacking groups, left, center, and Ranney’s to the right. After some fierce fighting, they succeeded in overcoming the German resistance and disabling the artillery pieces. Company E’s attack has been studied at West Point as a textbook example of an assault on a fixed position by a numerically inferior force. Many medals for bravery were earned by members of the company that day with Ranney receiving a Bronze Star.

The war raged on for several months beyond D-Day. May 8, 1945 (V-E Day) marks the end of the fighting in Europe. In Hitler’s mountaintop hideaway Company E enjoyed drinking Hitler's private collection of cognac and wine. Japan signed its unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945. The next day my wife’s mother gave birth to her and they had a difficult time finding a doctor in Mandan because they were thought to have been celebrating the end of the war the night before.

In 1982, Ranney wrote a letter to his old commanding officer Dick Winters. A passage from that letter become famous after Winters quoted it in the miniseries. “In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I’m treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, “Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?”

“No, I answered, “but I served in the company of heroes.”

Legendary stories of paratroopers entered the language and imagination of youngsters like myself who adopted a bit of hero worship in the years following the war. As one of their traits they tucked the bottoms of their trousers into their boots. In years following that style of boots became available in the shoe stores and young fellows could buy them outfitted with a large leather top and two buckles on them. Yup, I had a pair.

Ranney's Story Beneath the Stone

 While attending a recent event, we heard one couple sing a song they had written titled “A Story Buried Beneath the Stone.” We’re undertaking this little project dealing with stories under the stones in the Sheldon cemetery. When asking if readers wanted more stories like the “Alaskan Scout” story,  responses showed an strong interest in our doing just that. How much interesting background can be found is unknown, but we know everyone  buried under those headstones has a story. So we will keep posting them as long as we can find them. And if readers know good stories about individuals beneath the stones, let me know.

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The grave marker for a man named Russ Ray Ranney stands on the west side of the cemetery.  Starting in 1937, he published The Sheldon Progress newspaper until 1942. An interesting inscription on it tells us that in World War I he served as a PFC attached to the 221st Aero Squadron. The military’s use of airplanes then was in a rudimentary stage with its rickety bi-wings - think “Red Baron.” Russ Ranney probably didn’t fly, but would have instead served in a support role. 

Aero squadrons were not very old. Only two years prior to our entering the war in 1918 a historical event occurred that first placed them into active service. The Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa with 500 men raided the U. S. town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 17 people. This, of course, could not go unpunished, and Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing organized a force to pursue Villa into Mexico and destroy him and his followers. Included in that army group  was an aero squadron from Fort Sam Houston at San Antonio, Texas, where it had been established and stationed.  This was the first time the United States had ever placed a "tactical air unit" in the field. On February 5, 1917, the expedition officially ended. Though Villa was never captured, General Pershing's men were exposed to military training. As for the Mexican bandits, they simply melted away into the hills.

A biographical sketch in Sheldon’s red history book written by Mr. and Mrs. Ranney’s son, Mike, tells us what we know today about his parents. He stated his mother Lucy is buried beside Russ, but no marker had been placed identifying her. The newspaper probably wasn’t making a great deal of money which caused Mike to say that when the publication of The Progress ended,  Russ started working as a rural mailman in 1942. He added that Minnie and Lois Douglas worked for his dad at the paper, and while visiting recently with Steve Bowman, said his mother worked there, too. Ranney needed extra help because the Progress had not modernized and still printed by hand-setting the letters on each page. 

 Mr. Ranney wrote a brief, yet gripping mention in the August 20, 1942 issue about his only child Myron. He wrote, “A letter came this morning from my son, Myron, saying he had volunteered for the paratroop division of the army. Myron is nineteen and a former student of the University of N. D. The letter brought a lump in my throat and made it hard for me to work. He was not forced to go. But he loves his own country greater than his own security.” Even though Myron is not buried in Sheldon his story will appear in a few days as part 2 of this post. He became known as a member of the now famous “Band of Brothers” in World War II.

 

Early Days in Sheldon

 The early days of Sheldon make for interesting study. The town came into being with the construction of the Northern Pacific rail line in 1882. The purpose of the large land grants given to the railroad companies was to provide land for people to come settle. They needed to sell it for two reasons: to finance building of the lines and to insure an income from carrying freight. How much was it worth? To determine values, the railroads sent out land examiners, one of whom noted his impression of Sheldon as he rode through on June 3, 1883 from Fargo on the new railroad. 

“The only station of any account is Sheldon where there are about 25 buildings large and small in including a good R.R. station and elevator. The road is still rough and has a very incomplete aspect.” Now with the railroad, citizens and businessmen could ship in lumber to build even more. But those 25 existing buildings obtained lumber a different way.

Turning to the red history book for Sheldon’s Centennial published in 1981 we find mention of how they managed to get the material

om Buffalo. A teamster, William McConnell, brought building materials from Buffalo. Frank Connelly’s WPA statement informs us that in 1881 a lumberyard was established in Buffalo from where he hauled the first load of lumber that started the building of Sheldon. 

In its first year of publication, The Sheldon Progress reported that freight business on the railroad was rapidly on the increase. Twenty cars of freight passed through yesterday (March 30, 1885). Lumber comprised a good part of that freight.

It’s unknown how many of the first buildings still stand. The house on the south side of the old  Methodist Church certainly belongs on the list. Mrs. Lillian Wall visited the Register of Deeds office in Lisbon and found that the earliest record of it occurred on April 21, 1883 when E. E. Sheldon sold it to a Wellington Gram. Given the dates, we know it existed before the railroad came.

This picture shows the house as it looks today.

Alaskan Gold Miner Buried in Sheldon

 An interesting find occurred at the Sheldon cemetery recently. The following narrative explains it. There are other stories in the cemetery, too, and in the future we plan to share some of them..

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An Alaskan Gold Prospector Was Buried in Sheldon

Every year before Memorial Day, we make an effort to visit the cemeteries where friends and relatives have been buried. In Sheldon we took time to wander about and look at the inscriptions on some of the tombstones. Mary found one that caught her eye and called me over to look at a modest, flat stone honoring a World War II veteran. It bore this inscription: Willis J. Cruden, North Dakota, Intelligence Platoon Alaskan Scouts, World War II, Feb 15, 1906, May 12, 1943.

The mention of Alaskan Scout interested us in the history of the man, and upon returning home she looked for information in census reports, Ancestry.com, and Chronicling America. Given the clue of Alaska, she found a 1940 census report showing him being a prospector for gold around Talkeetna, Alaska, in the possession of “0” dollars. She also found a brief mention in the Fargo Forum of July 18, 1943, that he had been posthumously awarded the Purple Heart after being killed in action.

That’s all we knew about him to this point, but there had to be more, besides living in Alaska and not being a successful prospector for gold. Who were the Alaskan Scouts? What were the circumstances to Cruden’s receiving the Purple Heart? Why was he buried in the Sheldon cemetery? A compelling story began developing with further research.

On June 6, 1942, the Japanese army had invaded two of the Aleutian Islands, namely Kiska and Attu, part of the archipelago extending from Alaska proper because the Japanese command wanted to control the northern sea routes. They needed to be countered and driven off United States soil. The first step taken was made by Colonel Lawrence Castner whose orders were to form the 1st Alaskan Combat Intelligence Platoon. He handpicked 65 rugged outdoorsmen from the collection of trappers, miners, hunting guides, dog sledders, fishermen, prospectors, loggers, and indigenous natives. When he finished selecting them, he said they all had one thing in common, “They’re tough.” Cruden had been picked to become one of “Castner’s Cutthroats.”

Little effort was made for uniformity: they wore their own clothing, chose their own weapons, and possessed a variety of nicknames. A few of them could be found such as Aleut Pete and Waterbucket Ben. Yes, Willis Cruden had one, too, Bad Whiskey Red.

The story led to the morning of May 11, 1943, when a boatload of Scouts reconnoitered a beach as a landing spot for the U. S. attacking force. A small group of them rowed their way through the fog and wind with Cruden holding a compass and accurately navigating the boat onto the landing beach. They spent the frigid night with no provisions or shelter. When the fog lifted the next morning, Japanese snipers surprised them from high ground, targeted Cruden, and shot him dead through his heart, May 12.

Mary found the document which Cruden’s mother, Frances, filled out to apply for his Military Veteran headstone. Since Cruden was an unfamiliar name to me I wanted to know about her connection to Sheldon. Why did she choose his final place of rest in Sheldon. This was her home area. Her maiden name was McCusker, born and raised in Shenford Township, south of Sheldon. She lies beside her son in the cemetery. She might never have known about his military exploits. More might be added someday since there are a lot of stories regarding the extraordinary Alaskan Scouts. They represented a singular part of the large effort made by all the military forces in World War II.

A postscript adds another Sheldonite who served in Alaska during World War II - Tom McGrath served in the Aleutian Islands, too, but not as a “Scout.”

The Plow That Broke the Plains

Here is a poem I will take to the Medora Poetry Gathering on Memorial Day weekend. It seems relevant to the winds and erosion we've seen here lately.

 The Plow That Broke the Plains

The land spread before them,

a prairie with waving grasses

and roots that reached and weaved

deeply into the virgin soil.

They said that grass would grow so high

that it stood taller than the cows,

and sometimes made them hard to find.

One settler told of the wasted time

they had each day finding missing

cows that had disappeared into lush

growth to eat their fill. Now we read

that deep roots might enjoy talking

with each other to pass the word

on down the line. I suspect they 

spent time laughing about these 

poor folks looking this way and that.

Then John Deere invented something,

it was revolutionary,

a self-scouring steel plow that cut

roots of the Midwestern prairie.  

John Deere was a plain old blacksmith

who picked up a broken saw blade.

He saw potential in its shine,

so take a look at what he made.

It’s called "The Plow that Broke the Plains.”

Then there’s that time it didn’t rain,

the farmers couldn’t harvest grain. 

Then they learned if you turn the grass 

the soil blows away and rises in the air.

Gopher Tails Bought a Suit

 An NDSU history professor, Tom Isern, and his wife, Suzzanne Kelley, the director of NDSU Press, produce a  Facebook program from their  home called Plains Folk. He’s folk-oriented and sings the praises of the old North Dakota settlers. Last Friday evening one tune contained the line about someone who trapped gophers for the bounty on their tails: “I’m gonna get a new outfit with my gopher tails this fall.”

After hearing it, my wife said don’t you remember the story your mother told about her brother, Marion (Sonny). Written on the back of this picture was her remembrance of how he’d trapped gophers until he got enough money - about $8 or $10 -  to buy the suit he is wearing in this picture. My mother is the oldest girl in the family and is seen sitting on the left.

Now, this Mother’s Day , I can’t help but think how young she was on this picture and how quickly her life passed. She was 94 years of age when she died in 2014. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.