Cooksville Artists and Artisans - PART SIX: MARVIN RANEY (1918-1980) and CHESTER P. HOLWAY (1908-1986), by Larry Reed

Marvin Raney c.1970

 The Village of Cooksville has been gifted with a number of talented people over the past 175 years.  Many have contributed to and enhanced the quality of life—and attracted attention to the small village. Thanks to their legacy— and to their stories and biographies contained in the Cooksville Archives— we have been able to record and remember their lasting contributions.

E. Marvin Raney, Jr. 

E. Marvin Raney (1918-1980), a very active, visible and enthusiastic Cookvillian, was recognized for his extensive knowledge of the village, which grew from the time he arrived in 1945 until he died in 1980. Everyone knew him for his wealth of information, his eagerness to share—and for his ubiquitous cigarette-holder.

Raney resided in the Duncan House (the famous “House Next Door”) with his partner Chester Holway for 35 years, during which he carried on many of the same “antiquarian” undertakings as the house’s previous owner Ralph Warner, which were collecting, researching and preserving Cooksville-related material objects, village history and local genealogy. Raney also learned to weave rugs, which he sold along with other crafts in the shop that he and his neighbor and artist Dorothy Kramer established in the 1950s in the Duncan House barn.

Duncan House painted tile by Dorothy Kramer

"Cooksville House" shop card

He operated two antique businesses, the first in Cooksville was the “Cooksville House” in the Duncan barn (then moved to the Backenstoe-Howard House) in the 1950s and 1960s; and the second near Cooksville was the “Only Yesterday Shop” in the historic granary on the Joseph Porter Farmstead (then known as “Ady Ruth’s Apple Basket”) east of Cooksville in the 1970s. The village proved a perfect place once again for someone who loved history, antiques and gardening. (In Raney’s time there were four antique shops and three commercial gardens and nurseries in or near the village.)

A Texas native, Ely Marvin Raney, Jr., became a well-known authority on Cooksville history and genealogy and on Rock County history, and he was an authority on antiques specializing in pottery and china. He published a number of articles locally and nationally on antiques and served as a director and as acquisitions chairman for the Rock County Historical Society, helping to organize its historical records. He also was the historian and technical advisor on the move of Janesville’s historic Stone House to the grounds of the Lincoln-Tallman House in the 1950s, and he assisted the Wisconsin Historical Society to identify and appraise its collections of pottery and china.

Raney was frequently called upon to lecture on local history and antique collecting, and he was instrumental in organizing the first village-wide historic house tour in Cooksville in the 1950s. 

As the village historian—carrying on the tradition of that important “caretaker” role in Cooksville— Raney continued and expanded the work of his predecessors, Ralph Warner, Susan Porter and Cora Atwood, by collecting their historical writings, accumulating more photographs and historical materials, and by adding his own very extensive genealogical and history-related  documentation of the village and the surrounding area.

Raney received his Bachelor of Arts degree from New Mexico College in 1939 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1940. He then served in the U.S. Army in World War II, settling in Cooksville in 1945, where he continued his work and studies at UW-Madison teaching Spanish and serving as editor for the Luso-Brazilian Review journal there in the 1960s

Besides serving as Cooksville’s historian, researcher, writer, lecturer and promoter of village history, Raney was a key figure in obtaining recognition and designation of the Cooksville Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the State Register of Historic Places in 1973 and expanded in 1980.

Raney and his partner Chester Holway were enthusiastic and energetic advocates of what might be called “the Cooksville experience”: living a 20^th century life in the small, quaint, rural 19^th-century  “town that time forgot,” which, importantly, other people were beginning to happily re-discover as well. Both were generous and modest advocates, writers, historic scholars, avid gardeners, and community-minded residents of their “friendship village.” They cultivated and promoted an attitude that had begun forming earlier in the 20^th century, namely, that living in the midst of the past can provide a very pleasurable present and safer future. The two encouraged others to carry on with the preservation and celebration of their little historic village in the northwest corner of Rock County.

Chester Perry Holway

Chester Holway c.1940s

Chester P. Holway (1908-1986) brought his gardening enthusiasm and his professional journalistic skills to Cooksville beginning in 1941, when he purchased the Duncan House (“House Next Door”) from Ralph L. Warner.  Holway, a native of Indiana and graduate of Lake Forest College in Illinois, had been a newspaper editor in Indiana and Wisconsin and then pursued his editing and advertising career in Milwaukee, where he no doubt had learned of Cooksville; later he worked in Chicago while residing in Cooksville until his retirement.

Holway had a number of articles about his gardening efforts published in national horticultural magazines. He and Raney continued Ralph Warner’s old-fashioned flower gardening as well as “experimenting” with the growing of trees and shrubs that were considered non-hardy in southern Wisconsin, creating a showcase of many varieties of flora. And they happily shared their plants with others—although Raney refused to accept any “thanks” for his gifts of plants he gave because, as he said, they really are gifts from generous Mother Nature.

Holway also published a book,  How To Profit from the Tourist Business (1949), and he completed a lengthy manuscript titled, “A Gathering of Waters: An Adventure in Search of Wisconsin,” about his experiences traveling throughout the state in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In it he described the state’s varied landscapes, its history and historic sites, the lives of local folks and a variety of interesting and unusual characters and encounters along the way.

Like Raney, Holway was a veteran of World War II and both no doubt appreciated the quiet charm and friendliness that were special qualities of historic Cooksville and its residents. The village served as a place of refuge and refreshment for the new residents who were welcomed by their many like-minded Cooksville neighbors and who in turn welcomed others through the years.

Certainly, in the 1950s, with the old Cooksville General Store, the Porter Town Hall occupying the old Congregational Church, the popular Snack Shop, the old Schoolhouse about to become a Community Center owned by its members, and with the many original mid-19^th century houses, some in the process of being converted from rustic summer homes into full-time residences once again— with all this there was much to be appreciated, much that made the village a very special place..

Soon Cooksville began to attract more attention, recognition and careful restoration that its history deserved as it reached the mid-20^th century. And this activity cast a special light on its old patina that made the village glow even more, allowing its residents, new and old, to be proud of their historic “wee bit of New England in Wisconsin.”