My name is Max Ranney, and I donated my grandfather's broom hammer and four examples of his work — brooms he had made because he was blind.
The Lions Club teaches and promotes [the aid] of blind people, and one of their projects is making brooms.
I don't remember very much about him, because I was five years old when he died. Most of my memories come from what my parents and my cousins, who are older than I [am], told me. My son is also the son of older parents, and I want to make sure that he understands where he came from and what his relatives did, and how they overcame living in this century and were able to make a success of themselves.
He went blind because of a dynamite accident in 1920. He died in 1961 and spent 41 years trying to raise a family and provide for them as a blind person. He was sent to Chicago for recovery, and that's where they taught him how to make brooms, or that he chose to do that because of what he wanted to do to help support his family.
With me working at Century II for 40 years, you always used to work the Lions Club’s pancake days. When I needed a broom, I went to the [event] and bought myself a broom made by a blind person in their program to support people.
