Howard S. Ramey, manager and one of the proprietors of the Ramey Bros. lumber and coal firm, of Manhattan, Kan., is a descendant of Scotch-Irish and French ancestry, a mixture that has produced so many sucessful American citizens. He is the son of Sanford and Sarah (McVey) Ramey, the former of French descent and a native of Ohio, born near Zanesville in 1837. He received a good education for that day and became the first American teacher in Muskingum county. Subsequently he bought and preëmpted some 220 acres of land and started to farm, which occupation he followed in Ohio all his days. Sarah McVey also was a native of Ohio, born at Bedford in 1847, and it was from her that the children inherited their Scotch-Irish blood. Howard S. was born on his father's farm, June 11, 1874, near Zanesville, and led the life of the normal farm boy, attending school in the winter and herding cattle or plowing in the summer time. After finishing the district school his father sent him to the high school at Hanover, where he graduated; then he entered the Ohio Normal University at Ada, now Ohio Wesleyan University, but remained only one term. After leaving college he began to teach; followed that calling at Cottage Hill, Ohio, three years; went from there to Adams Mills for a year, and then came to Kansas, the Mecca for the youth of the Northeastern States. For a year after coming west he taught at Harveyville, Kan., but resigned to become assistant cashier of the Eskridge State Bank. Here he soon began to realize that he needed some further business training and went to Topeka, where he took a thorough business course. Upon leaving the commercial college Mr. Ramey entered the employ of C. E. Friend, who owned lumber yards at Soldier, Goff, Olsburg and Corning, Kan. For two years he was stationed at Corning; then entered the home yard at Soldier, where he spent four years in mastering all branches of the lumber business. The ambition grew within him to become the manager and owner of a yard himself. He therefore interested his brother, Walter W. Ramey, president of the Manhattan State Bank, in the scheme, with the result that they formed a partnership and bought out the Chicago Lumber & Coal Company of Manhattan, which they reorganized under the firm name of Ramey Bros., and which has been in successful operation since 1907. The business has grown under the skillful management of Mr. Ramey, and is regarded as one of the most substantial enterprises in northeastern Kansas. Of the family of nine children only these two have come to the Sunflower State. In politics Mr. Ramey is a Republican, and his fraternal affiliations are with the Masonic order. On Jan. 20, 1909, he married Josephine, the daughter of Frank Rainy, of Soldier, Kan., and one child has been born to this union: Edith La Verne. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.