Chandler A Ward / Elizabeth Rachel Clair

INDEX

[52] Click here for early Ward photo
Pictured left to right:
Minnie and Bertha Klamm, Charlotte Ward, Louise
Klamm(Mrs John Ward), Lizzie Ward, Elizabeth Ward, Chandler Ward. John Ward,
George Ward, and William Ward. Taken previous to death of Lizzie Ward in 1913
probably in 1910

[53] Click here for later Ward picture.
Pictured left to right:
Chandler Ward, Elizabeth Ward, Clarence
Ward, Josie Ward w/ Erma and Earl in front, next 3 unknown, Charlotte Ward, last person unknown.

[54] Click here for solo photo of Chandler Ward taken circa 1926
Click here for photo of Chandler and Arthur Ward(standing) and Wm Giddings

[55] Chandler Ward enlisted in the GAR at Wards Grove, Illinois in Company A,
145 Division of the Infantry in May 1864. He was Honorably Discharged in the
same year after having contracted typhoid fever.
Elizabeth Rachel (Clair) Ward was born in Kent Twp, Stephenson County,
Illinois, into a family of 3 girls and 2 boys. Her father died when she was
only a young girl.
About a year and a half after their marriage, in June 1969, Chandler
and Elizabeth Ward moved to Wesley, in Kossuth County, Iowa by ox cart. They
were accompanied by Chandler's father and mother and three sisters and their
husbands. This journey to Wesley, Iowa must have been completed by early
July of 1869 because on July 14, 1869, Charlotte Sophia Ward, the wife of
Abner Flack, gave birth to a daughter Hattie Henrietta Flack at Wesley, Iowa.
Charlotte Sophia (Ward) Flack was one of the sisters of Chandler Ward who
accompanied him and his wife to Wesley, Iowa.
According to their own verbal accounts they often had to cross streams or
other bodies of water on the way. On one occasion the water was deep enough
that their sack of potatoes floated out of the oxcart and had to be retrieved.
Chandler received grants of land both as a homesteader and as a US Army
veteran of the Civil War. The couple lived on that farm until their deaths.
Chandler Ward once related to his grandson (Clare E Wolf) that he once
had a team of oxen named Tom and Jerry. It is not unfair to speculate that
this was the ox team that brought Chandler and Elizabeth Ward to Iowa !
For more information on Chandler Ward, see Bernard Ward, the brother of
Alcenas Ward and Chandler Ward's uncle.

[56] Elizabeth Rachel (Clair) Ward came from a family of 3 girls and 2 boys.
Her father died when she was a young girl. She was a member of the United
Brethren Church.

[57] Click here for another photo of Elizabeth and Chandler Ward
Click here for a photo of Elizabeth and Chandler Ward with part of their family

[58] Chandler Ward, along with his wife, his father, Alcenas Ward, his brother
William Ward and his brothers-in-law Abner Flack, William Giddings and James
Ford all moved to Wesley, Iowa in Kossuth County and took up homesteads there
in June 1869. The trip from Jo Daviess county in NW Illinois to Wesley, in
Kossuth County, IA, was made by ox cart and took four weeks. Chandler
received one 80-acre plot of land by homestead and another 80 acres as a
veteran of the Civil War. The document granting one 80-acre plot, signed by US
Grant, is in possession of Clare E Wolf.
Circa 1845 an Andrew Ward published a genealogy of the Ward family. A
copy of that book is also in possession of Clare E Wolf. In 1926 an Artemas
Ward published an updated and more correct Ward Genealogy. A copy of that
work is in possession of Mrs Mina Bird, Woden, Iowa. Chandler Ward is
listed in that 1926 Ward Genealogy.
When the Wards first came to Wesley, Iowa, there was no railroad but within
a very few years the railroad came thru Wesley and prairie hay became a
saleable commodity that could be shipped by rail to Chicago. Chandler Ward
once cut a crop off of what is now the center of main street in Wesley.
Additional information about Chandler Ward can be found
under Bernard Ward, the uncle of Chandler A Ward.

[59] Click here for a photo of the Jim and Annie (Ward) Kernan family.
Pictured left to right: May, James and Francis.

[44] Click here for later photo of Edward and Charlotte Wolf

[45] The name of the mother of Edward Charles Wolf was always thought to be
Agnes Lorenz. However, the 1870 Census Records of Magnolia Twp, Putnam
County, IL shows her family name to be Lawrence and she was therein recorded
as having born in Prussia, in Germany.
The family name apparently was changed to Lawrence by the census taker both
in 1870 and in 1880 when Barbara Lorenz was listed as residing with Elizabeth
and Michael Matern and was listed as Barbara Lawrence.
The spelling Lawrence was never used by the family. The name Lorenz is on
the tombstone of Antone Lorenz and that is the name used in all accounts
concerning the family. It is established that LORENZ is the correct and
proper spelling of the name.
The census statement that the Lorenz family came from Prussia may also be
in error. Information within the family says it was Alsace Lorraine which,
at various times, has been part of both France and Germany.

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