| "Owned quarter-section "ranch" farm outside Lyford,Texas, about 40 miles north of Brownsville. From gleanings overheard as a child, apparently GW ran away from his family (about which I know nothing, but assume they were from the Rahway, NJ area) when he was 12 or so. As a small child in the early '30's I vaguely recall family visits to his brother who might have been William Crane. Might have had a fourth kid, Curtis, who died in infancy and was the souce of Don's(gruncle) middle name. He had some sort of managerial position running the Perth Amboy coal docks for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The boys were raised in a massive, square old house on farm acreage in the Rahway/Amboys area. The "manse" was called Bramhall. I once had a picture of it, with the horse barn (no, not a coachhouse) in back and a cistern on the roof to supply running water in the house. He had an automobile before 1910, I think. I know that my dad (Ralph) once told me that he and Ed taught GW how to drive it when they were in high school. A widower, GW lived in apartments in the Rahway area until the 1930's." -- Told by Don Curtis Crane. |