Early Life
Ringo was born in Greensfork, Indiana, of distant Dutch ancestry. His family moved to Liberty, Missouri in 1856. He was a contemporary of Frank and Jesse James, who lived nearby in Kearney, Missouri, and became a cousin of the Younger brothers through marriage when his aunt, Augusta Peters Inskip, married Coleman P. Younger, uncle of the outlaws.
In 1858 the family moved to Gallatin, Missouri where they rented property from the father of John W. Sheets (who became the first "official" victim of the James-Younger gang when they robbed the Daviess County Savings & Loan Association in 1869).
On July 30, 1864, while the Ringo family was traveling through Wyoming on their way to California, his father Martin Ringo stepped out of his wagon holding a shotgun which accidentally discharged. The buckshot round entered the right side of his face, exiting the top of his head. The 14-year-old John Ringo and the rest of his family buried him on a hillside alongside the trail.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Ringo
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Innocence is lovely in the child, because in harmony with its nature; but our path in life is not backward but onward, and virtue can never be the offspring of mere innocence. If we are to progress in the knowledge of good, we must also progress in the knowledge of evil. Every experience of evil brings its own temptation and according to the degree in which the evil is recognized and the temptations resisted, will be the value of the character into which the individual will develop.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)