ROGERS S. RANSEHOUSEN, LT, USN

Rogers Ransehousen '21

Date of birth: January 18, 1899

Date of death: February 27, 1928

Age: 29

Lucky Bag

From the 1921 Lucky Bag:

Rogers Sturtevant Ransehousen

Springfield, Massachusetts

"Rog" "Ranse" "Roughhousen"

"I WANT sympathy" (sing it; it sounds better). This was one of this bright-eyed individual's favorite lines, and it works exceedingly well upon the poor innocent draggees at the hops, especially the Springfield hops under Chairman Ransehousen's guiding influence and sword belt.

Besides this, he is one of the most helpful men to have around, especially when you want anything moved or not moved. For instance, you'll come back from Smoke Hall, or elsewhere, to your old room, and it would be necessary to get a rooming list and find out if you're in the right room. You'd be surprised to find that it was just your belongings that had moved and you were still an occupant of the old domicile.

Roughhousen has a great propensity for visiting. Ever and anon the D. O.'s would find him hidden under a bed or behind a locker in some friend's room, far from his own, "Like unto a mossy rock half hidden from the eye!"

The two good things about Rog are his generosity and his readiness for a party—being the first there and the last to leave.

One Stripe; Buzzard (2); Numerals Class Football (2); Tennis Squad (4, 3, 2); Class Lacrosse (2).

The Class of 1921 was the last of the wartime-accelerated classes. "1921A" was graduated on June 3, 1920; the second half, "1921B", was graduated on June 2, 1921. Rogers was graduated with 1921B.

Rogers Sturtevant Ransehousen

Springfield, Massachusetts

"Rog" "Ranse" "Roughhousen"

"I WANT sympathy" (sing it; it sounds better). This was one of this bright-eyed individual's favorite lines, and it works exceedingly well upon the poor innocent draggees at the hops, especially the Springfield hops under Chairman Ransehousen's guiding influence and sword belt.

Besides this, he is one of the most helpful men to have around, especially when you want anything moved or not moved. For instance, you'll come back from Smoke Hall, or elsewhere, to your old room, and it would be necessary to get a rooming list and find out if you're in the right room. You'd be surprised to find that it was just your belongings that had moved and you were still an occupant of the old domicile.

Roughhousen has a great propensity for visiting. Ever and anon the D. O.'s would find him hidden under a bed or behind a locker in some friend's room, far from his own, "Like unto a mossy rock half hidden from the eye!"

The two good things about Rog are his generosity and his readiness for a party—being the first there and the last to leave.

One Stripe; Buzzard (2); Numerals Class Football (2); Tennis Squad (4, 3, 2); Class Lacrosse (2).

The Class of 1921 was the last of the wartime-accelerated classes. "1921A" was graduated on June 3, 1920; the second half, "1921B", was graduated on June 2, 1921. Rogers was graduated with 1921B.

Loss

Rogers was lost on February 27, 1928, when the plane he was aboard crashed en route to Annapolis.

Other Information

Rogers was involved with a married woman, Constance Hart Wylie, from the San Francisco area; the resulting divorce proceedings played out in newspaper reports in late January and early February 1926.

In November 1927 she was to be married to a Frenchman.

Sometime in late 1925 he was engaged to be married to "a wealthy San Mateo [California] girl, but that she had broken off the engagement at the time of his alleged attentions to Mrs. Wylie.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Rogers attended Central high school in Springfield.
The Constance Wylie divorce case never came to trial. Mr. Wylie had also named Constance’s mother as someone else who alienated Constance’s affections from him. On January 8, 1926, Rogers was a guest of Constance’s mother at the Hotel Langdon in New York City. He was occupying the hall bedroom in the suite when Mr. Wylie accused him of kissing his wife and threatened his life. In court, Rogers said he never kissed her. In turn, Constance sued for divorce, studied music in Paris and married Arnaud Faure, a French war hero and head of a large brokerage house. She divorced him, and a few years later, she married Baron Frederick Auckland. He died during a London blitz. She died as Lady Auckland in late December 1946. In her younger years, she wrote the song “Man of Mine” and acted briefly in pictures. She played Countess Arline in the 1925 movie “The Only Thing.”
On December 4, 1926, Rogers attendied a dinner dance at the Country Club in Pensacola, and he attendied a private party in Norfolk on July 7, 1927.
His father was Edward, an Aetna Life Insurance agent. His mother Harriette died in June, 1964, and was buried in Chapel of the Chimes in Santa Rosa, California. His sister Elizabeth became Mrs. Lionel Rowe whose husband in 1940 was the attorney general for American Samoa.

He is buried in Massachusetts.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.