The Life of the Party: Betty Raney McKool

Elizabeth Ann “Betty” Raney McKool (1929-2018) was a descendant of Robert E.  Ferris, son of Warren A. Ferris.  Her mother Sadie Mae Raney and Sadie’s sister Ethel (subject of our earlier profile “The Cousins”) left their farm home near Euless, TX and came to work at the Haggar Pant factory in downtown Dallas. Sadie was the chief support of her family as her husband Alfred Raney was frequently unemployed. Betty’s sister Frances said of their father, “He was a man of leisure”, a dreamer of grandiose moneymaking schemes that often exploited his wife and children. Luckily Sadie was a hard worker and a skilled seamstress. Her daughter Betty attended Crozier Tech high school and had a part-time job gift-wrapping at the Neiman-Marcus downtown store. When Betty spotted a beautiful blue dress she could not afford, Sadie borrowed the money, bought the dress, brought it home and made a pattern, returned the dress to Neiman’s, and created an exact duplicate. Such was her resourcefulness and her determination that her children not be denied.

Teenage Betty Raney

Betty Raney was a sixteen-year-old cheerleader when she met Mike McKool at a Crozier Tech football game. Mike was a Dallas lawyer with an established practice, son of Lebanese immigrants, eleven years Betty’s senior. When Mike’s father came to Ellis Island, he spoke no English but had been coached to say his name whenever he heard the word “name”. The immigration official asked his name and he said “Mihoul”. The official wrote down “McKool” and asked his first name. Again, “Mihoul”. So the young Lebanese immigrant entered the U.S. as “McKool McKool”. As part of the Dallas Lebanese community along Pearl St., he was known as “Charlie” McKool. He ran a cafe which attracted the courthouse crowd. Charlie was so proud of his son Mike’s being valedictorian at Crozier Tech that he served what he called the “educated” hamburger. Judge Sarah T. Hughes helped young Mike get a scholarship to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where he earned a law degree. Mike and Betty married in 1946.

Betty and Mike McKool

Mike offered economic security to Betty and her often financially stressed family.  At first, they lived in East Dallas, but as the family grew and his law practice flourished, they moved to Preston Hollow in North Dallas.  Betty and Mike had four children: Mike, Jr. (1949), Mollie (1950), Matthew (1953), and Mitzi (1954). Raised as Catholics, the children attended Jesuit and Ursuline schools. Sadie Mae lived with them much of the time. Betty’s sister Frances was manager of the office building on Central Expressway which Mike owned. Mike and Betty shared childhood experiences that made them sensitive to injustice. They were compassionate and generous within, and beyond, their immediate family. Nothing aroused Betty’s anger more than seeing someone abused or treated unfairly.

McKool Family

In marrying Mike McKool, Betty became part of the closely-knit Dallas Lebanese community. She learned to cook Lebanese dishes and was the first non-Arab president of the Syrian/Lebanese club in Dallas. Leisure time was spent at Mike’s house on Lake Grapevine. He called it the “Good Fellowship Club”, and it was the focus of activity for his extended family. Everything centered around the family and maintaining Lebanese traditions of food, music, and religion. Like most Lebanese, Mike was hardworking and adaptable so his legal practice grew. Soon he became interested in Democratic politics and ran for political office. He was elected to the Texas Senate in 1968. Volatile Texas politics saw the rise of liberal Democrats like McKool while conservatives left the party to run as Republicans. In the Texas Senate, Mike was known as “Little Hercules”, leading walkouts and breaking the filibuster record by holding the floor for over forty hours, urging funding for mental health services.  In 1974, Mike ran for U.S. Congress. He won the primary but lost in a close general election to Republican Alan Steelman. This loss did not dampen the McKools’s interest in politics.

Betty met Ann Richards when Ann was living in Dallas, before she moved to Austin and became involved in state politics. They became life-long friends, kindred spirits who shared a quick sense of humor and love of a good party. Betty played the guitar, made up songs, and was not shy about performing in public. She enjoyed entertaining. Every year Betty and Mike hosted a backyard party for the Dallas District Attorney’s office and Dallas police officers. They threw huge Christmas parties at downtown hotels, attended by governors, Congressmen, and judges. These were parties with a purpose, often fundraisers and opportunities to promote her political causes.  Active in Democratic Women of Dallas County, Betty spoke all around Texas encouraging women to run for public office. One of her talks was titled “ Politics 101: Campaign Secrets and Don’t Peak Too Soon.”

Sisters Frances Raney Godfrey and Betty Raney McKool at gala event

Betty was the life of any party, especially the Democratic Party. She was an extrovert who loved fun and a good laugh. Her friends and family describe Betty as “zany”, “effervescent”, and “wacky”. She used humor and satire to promote her political passions. Betty and Ann Richards were part of a group who performed a play at Hillcrest high school entitled “Political Paranoia”. She and Ann sent an annual Christmas card to the press and friends in Dallas, Austin, and Washington, D.C. The duo was so well disguised in the card’s photo that everyone was kept guessing their identity and the source of its sharp political satire.

Mystery Xmas Card

Mystery Xmas Card

A mature Betty McKool

Sisters and best friends Betty and Frances

Mike Jr. recalls attending Ferris/Uselton reunions at the family farm in Euless, TX.  Betty McKool and her sister Frances Godfrey took their children to the 1962 Ferris family reunion held at the Dallas Public Library where the library was showing an exhibit on their ancestor Warren A. Ferris. The Dallas descendants of Warren Ferris joined their relatives from West Texas and Oklahoma to celebrate all things Ferris. Mike, Jr. remembers the children being interviewed by local media covering the event.

Children at the 1962 Ferris reunion. Mollie McKool recalls the Ferris reunion and identifies her family members:

First row, left to right: Mitzi McKool, Matt McKool and cousin Patrick Godfrey.

Second row, left to right: second boy is Biff Godfrey, then Mike McKool, Jr., Susan Godfrey, Mollie McKool, and Becky Godfrey.

The McKool family and their cousins have been enthusiastic supporters of improvements at the Ferris Cemetery. Mike Jr. was a speaker at the first fundraiser of the Friends of the Warren Ferris Cemetery. Mike, Mollie, and others of their family have been generous donors. A cousin, Lisa Lee and her family recently donated a bird house to honor her grandmother Ethel Fuller. We only wish that Betty was here to see the spring wildflowers at the cemetery and help us throw some big fundraising parties - she sure loved a good party.

Ferris Descendants Left to right: Dallas Neeley, Mike McKool, Jr., Susan and Tom Froehlich at the first Ferris Cemetery Fundraiser, 2019

Written by Susanne Starling with the aid of Mollie McKool, Mike McKool, Jr., Mike’s wife Erin,  and cousin Susan Godfrey Froehlich.

Spring time, sea of Englemann's Daisies line the wood chipped pathway through the woodland cemetery grounds.

Henry Ferris, The Blind Fiddler

Warren Ferris’s son Henry was blind the last twenty years of his life. He loved playing the fiddle and entertained his family with Irish jigs and gospel music. Several of his children also played musical instruments. After dinner they would clear the table and sit around it enjoying some homegrown music.

Photo 1  Henry Ferris (1855-1940)

Henry was one of the middle children of Warren A. and Frances Ferris. Born in Dallas on the Ferris homestead, Henry married Sarah Frances “Fanny” Smith in Houston around 1875. They had one child when they moved to Falls County to join an enclave of relatives living in the Brazos River Valley. Henry was very close to his sister Mary Catherine “Kate” Dozier whose family were tenant farmers near Perry, TX. (See earlier profile “From the Brazos Bottoms”) This cluster of kinfolk included the Dozier, Munos, Ferris, and Rutledge families who intermarried.

Cotton, the major crop for sharecroppers, was moving to West Texas where dry-land cotton farming methods successfully increased production.The Ferris family joined this migration westward. First, they moved to Knox County where Henry’s wife died in 1925 and was buried in the Truscott, TX cemetery. Then Henry followed his adult children to Spur, TX in nearby Dickens County.  His daughter Alice, a widow with 2 children, married her cousin George Wilburn Rutledge in Falls County in 1907. Wilburn was the son of Henry’s sister Louisa “Lula” Ferris. It was Wilburn Rutledge who led the move to Spur; he was 35 years old. Henry was 73 and blind. With them were Henry’s grown children, Carl Dallas Ferris, Carl’s wife Stella McAnally, members of the McAnally family and Henry’s married daughter Minnie Ferris Jackson with her family.

Photo 2  Lena, Ethel, and Ruby Jackson, Henry Ferris, and William J. McAnally

Spur was a booming town in the 1920’s with two hotels and four movie houses. The Ferris kids went to school in Spur but the family lived on farms outside town, changing locations often to get better land or housing. They supplemented their income by doing carpentry or stonemasonry. During the Depression when cotton prices fell, the Ferrises moved to town. Carl D. worked on building a new football field and a small stone house for the coach. He also built and repaired barns to support his large family of twelve children. Carl’s sister Alice, married to  Wilburn Rutledge, had seven children plus those from her first marriage. She was called “little grandma” in the family as she was less than 5 feet tall. A housing shortage in Spur after WWII forced them to live in tents for a time. (Spur is known today for its Tiny Houses).

Jones Football Stadium - Spur, TX

Tiny House in Spur, TX

Henry Ferris was a great storyteller who entertained his grandchildren with tales of his father Warren Ferris and being chased by Indians on the Texas frontier. He was haunted by nightmares about an Indian encounter that occurred when he was twelve years old. There must be truth in the tale to have made such an impact on him. Henry and his father made a wagon trip from Dallas to get supplies. The year was 1867;  frontier forts were abandoned by federal troops during the Civil War so the Comanches were emboldened. According to Henry, they were tracked and attacked by Indians, lost their wagon and supplies, and limped back to Dallas on foot. This frightening brush with death dogged Henry the rest of his life, causing him to imagine Indians hidden in the grass. His  grandchildren grew up hearing of Warren Ferris who they called “Granddaddy” Ferris.

“Aunt Kate” Dozier remained close to her brother Henry over the years. She visited him in Spur and later in Rotan, TX where he lived with Carl. It appears that Kate was the glue that held the Ferris siblings together. Despite distance and the difficulty of travel, Kate visited Henry a couple of times a year. She also stayed in contact with other family members. Although they scattered across Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the children of Warren Ferris stayed in touch and helped one another when they could.

“Aunt Kate” Ferris Dozier

Note on back of her photo

Janelle Ferris Berry (1931- ) of Fort Worth, TX and her daughter Kathy Tull who lives next door were the source of many stories about Henry Ferris and his descendants. Janelle is the daughter of Carl Dallas Ferris (1891-1979). Although she has had two strokes, Janelle was able to relate her family memories and furnish some old photos. She related how her father built their home one room at a time. First he would add a porch and then turn it into a room. After several such additions, his wife Stella declared “no more porches.”

Janelle Ferris Berry, granddaughter of Henry Ferris (1931-)

Kathy Berry Tull, daughter of Janelle Ferris Berry, retired from Terrant Co. Sheriff's Dept

Back in 1998, when Land Is the Cry! was published, I included a brief family tree in the Appendix and I stated that Henry Ferris had “no issue”. Janelle Ferris Berry was quick to notify me that that was untrue - Henry had four children and many grandchildren. I am grateful to have the opportunity to correct my error, thank Janelle for notifying me, and say hello to Henry’s descendants, many of whom live in the Fort Worth area.  

Susanne Starling