Ernest Clifton Rankin Biography

          Ernest Clifton Rankin was born on December 10, 1864, to Nathaniel P. Rankin and June Wharton Rankin.¹  He was the third of four children, with an older sister Ella Rankin Siler, an older brother Douglas Wharton, and a younger sister Lillie May.²  Only Ella married, and the rest of the family lived in Franklin, North Carolina, until their deaths.

          In 1886, Ernest Rankin graduated from Davidson College, a Presbyterian college near Charlotte, North Carolina, with a bachelor’s degree in law.³  Nothing more is known about him until 1910, when he was promoted from a second-class clerk in the Department of Justice’s Division of Accounts to an examiner for the Department of Justice.⁴   He continued as an examiner, eventually being promoted to supervising examiner, until health problems caused him to retire in 1933 at the age of nearly sixty-nine.⁵

          Ernest Rankin’s work as an examiner was, according to the official description, “The periodic examination of offices of court officials, as directed from the Department from time to time, also any special investigations so directed concerning such officials, appertain to all judicial districts in the United States, and such examination assignments ordinarily embrace the offices of clerks United States district court and Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States marshal, the United States attorney, the principal United States commissioners, and principal referees in bankruptcy in respective districts.”⁶ In other words, Rankin was responsible for the oversight of the federal courts and their employees.  Once he received an assignment, he would travel to the assigned district – the Western District of North Carolina or the Southern District of Florida, for instance.  His work there mainly involved checking financial records to ensure that all monies were accounted for and to determine whether an expense could be reimbursed by the federal government; things like tipping a waiter in a non-tipping state, for instance, were not reimbursed.  If, in the course of his examination, Rankin discovered a major, unexplained financial discrepancy or misconduct of a court official, the matter would be referred to his superiors, and, if deemed necessary, a special investigation would be conducted.  The special examinations could also be initiated by a civilian or other court official’s complaint against an official.  The majority of Rankin’s cases, however, were the routine examinations of different districts, their courts, and the officials who worked in them.  Rankin traveled all over the country in his twenty-three years as an examiner, inspecting courts in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.  The majority of his work, however, was in the Southeastern United States.

          From all accounts, Rankin was a very good examiner.  As early as 1912, he was assigned to help train William S. Ward, the newest examiner, because of, as his boss S. W. Finch put it, “the confidence I have that you are able to give him [Ward] a good insight into the practical duties of an examiner in the field.”⁷  A 1925 Efficiency Rating gave Rankin a score of 92.23%, well above the average score of 82.5%.⁸  However, it seems that the job wore on Rankin periodically; in 1923, he wrote, “there is little of sympathetic and cordial association in the daily life of an examiner and while he may not always be conscious of it this sort of isolation constantly wears on him.  Also the little in the way of direct and tangible results from his work oftentimes lends to discouragement and leads to chronic dumps.”⁹  Despite the depression that his work as an examiner appears to have caused him to periodically suffer from, Rankin performed his job well for over twenty years.

          Rankin was incredibly detailed in his reports and very serious in his work, but he was also a person with a life outside of his work.  In 1911, he applied for a patent for an “automatic railway mail exchange device”; there is, however, no record in the collection of whether he received his patent or not.¹⁰  He also seemed to have had a real sense of humor.  This is best illustrated in a 1929 chain letter that he received from Harry Ham, an old friend who affectionately called Rankin “Tubby.”¹¹  The chain letter itself is rather typical, including a list of famous people supposedly involved –Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and Dorothea Dix, for example –and stating that if the receiver does not send the letter on to nine people the “Jewish curse” will be upon them.¹²  Rankin’s reply to the letter is witty and shows a mischievous side to a man who was at the time sixty-five years old.  Rankin wrote, “With reference to the chain letter and that stuff about having bad luck should it not be passed along to nine others, that hasn’t worried me a whole lot.  I am not superstitious, but then I don’t like to take unnecessary chances, so I just passed it along to nine fellows I don’t like anyway, knowing they hav’nt [sic] nine friends altogether.  Gosh, I can see them now trying to make some friends.”¹³ 

          In addition to the mischievous side that the chain letter shows, other letters in the Rankin collection show that Ernest Rankin was a generous man who loved his family.  Nearly all of the leaves of absence that Rankin requested were taken because either his father, brother, or unmarried sister was ill.  Furthermore, several letters from his nephews J. R. and Bob Siler relate that “Uncle Ern” had loaned them money several times and that it was this money that enabled the Siler Grocery Co. of Gastonia, North Carolina, to remain in business.¹⁴  Other charitable contributions included one hundred dollars to Rev. J. Arthur Flanagan in 1928 after the manse of the Franklin Presbyterian Church burned.¹⁵  This was a sizeable amount, since in 1926 –the last year that there is a record of how much money Rankin earned –Ernest Rankin’s salary was $3900.¹⁶

         After his retirement in 1933, Rankin moved permanently back to the family home in Franklin, where he lived with his sister, Lillie.  The two made frequent trips to Florida during the winters, as letters from their nephew J. R. Siler indicate.¹⁷  Apparently during this time, he wrote the history of his father, Major Nathaniel P. Rankin, who served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.¹⁸  Rankin appears to have kept his mind –and his talent for financial records –until his death; his incredibly detailed records of household, medical, and other expenses from 1958-1960 are a part of the collection. Ernest Rankin died in Franklin on November 11, 1961; he was nearly ninety-seven years old.¹⁹  He was buried with his parents and brother in the Rankin plot in Franklin’s Woodlawn Cemetery.²⁰

Bibliography

Macon County Historical Society. http://www.genealogybookstore.com/historicalsociety.htm

Rankin, Ernest C. Letters and Reports. D. Hiden Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville.