Clarence Edmund Rarick

CLARENCE EDMUND RARICK. A native of Kansas and a resident in the northern counties all his life, Clarence Edmund Rarick early discovered a bent toward teaching, and has made it a profession in which he has gained signal honors and rendered service to many communities. He is now superintendent of city schools at Osborne.

The Rarick family is of Welsh origin and were colonial settlers in Pennsylvania. Mr. Rarick's grandfather, Hiram Rarick, was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, in 1824. He had the pioneer incentive which took him out to the western frontier in 1865, settling with his family in Southern Minnesota. In 1871 he came to Kansas and homesteaded a quarter section in Mitchell County, and lived there until he retired. He died near Glen Elder, Kansas, in 1911. Hiram Rarick married Jane Connelly, who was born in New York State in 1828 and died in Mitchell County, Kansas, in 1909.

The father of Professor Rarick is Rev. G. L. Rarick, who is a charter member of the Northwestern Kansas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is one of the two surviving charter members still in active service, and holds the record for the longest consecutive work in that Conference, with which he has been actively identified for thirty-five years. His home is at Esbon. Reverend Rarick was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, in 1850, and was fifteen years old when his parents moved to Minnesota. He had just turned his majority when he came to Kansas in the spring of 1871, and he homesteaded a quarter section in Mitchell County. Later he sold his relinquishment and entered actively upon his career as a minister. During his long period of service he has held pastorates at Plainville, Smith Center, Phillipsburg, Osborne, Marquette, Clyde, Cuba, Oberlin, all along the northern border of Kansas, and is now pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church at Esbon. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and in politics is a republican. His first wife was Margaret Delilah Renshaw. She was born in Henry County, Illinois, in 1856 and died at Marquette, Kansas, in 1902. She was the mother of his five children: Florence Edna, who died at Mahaska, Kansas, in 1898, wife of E. H. Moon, now a district accountant for the Rock Island Railway Company living at El Reno, Oklahoma; Clarence Edmund, second in age; Sylva, wife of Dr. F. A. Mills, a physician and surgeon at Powell, Wyoming; George W., in the laundry business at Auburn, Nebraska; and John W., a farmer at Garden City, Kansas. Reverend Rarick married for his second wife Mary Davenport, of Plainville, Kansas.

Clarence Edmund Rarick was born at his father's home in Mitchell County March 17, 1879. His father being a minister, his own early youth was spent in numerous communities, and he attended the public schools of Mitchell, Rooks, Jewell and Republic counties, and in 1895 graduated from the high school of Smith Center. It was not long afterward that he entered upon his active career as a teacher. For four years he taught district schools in Smith and Phillips counties, was principal of the Portis School one year, and about that time was appointed a cadet at the West Point Military Academy. After one year he resigned, and soon resumed the principalship of the Portis school. He is an alumnus of the Kansas Wesleyan University at Salina, from which he graduated A. B. in 1904 and has done graduate work at the State Universities of Kansas and Colorado. The next four years he spent as principal of schools at Plainville and then for four years was county superintendent of schools of Rooks County. Too years of that time he served as a member of the State Board of Education and one year more he superintended the city schools at Stockton. In 1912 he entered upon his present duties as superintendent of public schools of Osborne. He has under his direct supervision both the graded public schools and the high school, including a staff of nineteen teachers and an enrollment of 500 pupils.

Mr. Rarick is a prominent member of the Osborne County and Kansas State Teachers associations. He owns a farm of 100 acres in Finney County, devoting it to grain and stock. He is on the official board of the Osborne Methodist Episcopal Church and is affiliated with the Masonic Lodge at Plainville, with the Royal Arch Chapter and Council at Osborne, and also with the Modern Woodmen of America at Osborne. In politics he is a republican.

In 1904, at Osborne, Mr. Rarick married Miss May Jewell, daughter of C. E. and Mary (Towne) Jewell, the latter now deceased. C. E. Jewell came to Osborne County as early as 1871 and now lives retired at Osborne. Mr. and Mrs. Rarick have three children: Florence Margaret, born September 9, 1907; Mary Lois, born August 6, 1909; George Lawrence, born August 30, 1911.

Pages 2361-2362.