Ring, Theodore J.

Theodore J. Ring, born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on August 2, 1876, holds the distinction of being the oldest resident of Raisin City, California. Descended from an old English family with roots in North Carolina stretching back six generations, his family history includes an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War and grandfathers who served in the Confederate Army. He grew up on his father plantation in Elkin, where he attended public schools and worked on the family land until the age of twenty-four. He then managed the freight warehouses for the Southern Railroad in Elkin for two years. During this period, he married Carrie Sprinkle, the daughter of a prominent local tobacco commission merchant, on February 25, 1903.

Seeking new opportunities, the couple relocated to California and arrived in Caruthers, Fresno County, on March 9, 1903. After two years of ranching, Theodore joined the Southern Pacific Railroad at Armona as a track-walker before being transferred to Ormus, now known as Raisin City, in April 1907. Serving ably as the foreman of Section 49, he witnessed the very birth of the town, which was laid out the same summer he arrived. Together with his wife, he raised six children named Muriel, Mary, Leslie, Jack, Catherine, and Maude, while maintaining a half interest in his family 600 acre North Carolina plantation. As a charitable community member, he aligned himself politically as a Democrat and maintained memberships in the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, and the Junior Order of American Mechanics.