Pipestone-Ramsey County MINNESOTA Biographies.....Ray Barton July 17 1889 - May 5 1974
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File contributed for Minnesota Biographies Project by:
Kenneth Smith ksmith22@mn.rr.com March 19, 2005, 1:37 am

Author: Ken Smith

BIOGRAPHY OF RAY ALFONZO BARTON 

Ray was born on a farm in Jackson County, Iowa, on July 17, 1889, the 
son of Jonathan Barton and Mary Gaddis.  The family moved to Rock 
County, Minnesota, then to Lake View, Iowa in 1895. The Barton and 
Sweet families’ relationship began in 1905, when Ray's oldest sister, 
Zada, married John Garfield Sweet. Ray graduated from high school at 
Lake View in 1907. That same year, the Barton family moved from Lake 
View to a farm in Pipestone County, near Bertram Sweet's farm. Bert was 
an older brother of John Garfield. Young Ray had worked at Bert’s farm 
during the summers of his high school years.

Nancy Cheney was born on a farm in Troy Township, Pipestone County, 
Minnesota, on August 2, 1889. She was the oldest daughter of Edwin 
Cheney and Esther Sweet. Bertram and John Garfield Sweet were 
Nancy’s uncles. Ray must have courted Nancy during those summers he 
worked at Bert’s farm. Ray and Nancy were married in Pipestone in 1911. 
They soon moved to Mankato, where Ray attended business school. After 
he graduated in 1914, Ray and Nancy, who were now the parents of a 
toddler, with another child on the way, moved to Trosky, a small town near 
Pipestone, where they built a small house. Ray managed the hotel, 
barbered, and had a cream station. In those days, a cream station was 
the middle man between farmers and local dairies, buying milk from the 
farmers and selling it to the dairies. Three daughters were born to the 
couple in Trosky. In 1919, they sold their house and cream station in 
Trosky to Ray's parents and moved to Worthington, Minnesota, then to 
Jackson, Minnesota in 1923. Ray operated cream stations in both towns. 
In 1925, the family moved to St. Paul and Ray became a traveling 
salesman. In 1929, the year their last child was born, the economy 
collapsed and the Great Depression began. During the Thirties, Ray took 
whatever work he could find to support his family. He worked for the City of 
St. Paul, delivered baked goods and sold Watkins products.

After their children were grown, Ray and Nancy lived for a few years with 
their daughter and son-in-law, Berneil and Warren Miller, then moved to 
the Mt. Airy Apartments in St. Paul. Nancy and Ray spent nearly fifty years 
in St. Paul, where they raised their eight children. Nancy and Ray were 
married more than sixty years. Nancy died in St. Paul on November 28, 
1972. Ray lived for a little more than a year more, and died on May 5, 
1974. They are both buried in Union Cemetery on the East Side of St. 
Paul.

Information for this biography from the privately published book, "The 
Bartons" by their son, Ray Barton Jr.; personal recollection of Rose Barton 
Kyllo and Pipestone County Historical Society.




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