Araminta Warner

Araminta Warner, eldest of the five children of John Warner and Marancy Alexander, was born in November, 1844 in Winslow, Stephenson County, IL. She arrived three and a half years into the marriage of her parents. This is an unusually delayed first birth by the standards of mid-1800s America, and is therefore likely to mean she had an older sibling or two who died young, but any evidence of that is missing. Araminta was usually called Minta, and appears under that name in most censuses (or as “Mintie”). Many extended family members were not even aware of the full version of her name. She shares with her mother the distinction of an uncommon name. This makes her somewhat easier to track in public records than her brothers. She was the only girl of the family. Her brothers were John, Frederick, Clifford, and Charles.

Minta and her family continued to reside in Winslow throughout her childhood. The households of her aunt Cynthia Mack and uncle George C. White were close by. Both her grandmothers shared the home when Minta was little. Her father was reliably employed as a farmer and miller. This degree of security changed radically when her father died, an event which occurred just after Minta turned thirteen. Over the next few years Minta was surely called upon to be her mother’s main assistant within the house, helping to care for her youngest brothers while Marancy did what she could to get by. She may have also been obliged to hire herself out as a domestic servant, even as her brother John was forced to find a job at the age of twelve to help support the family. This trying situation was mitigated somewhat in 1862 -- when Minta was seventeen -- by the marriage of her mother to Nicholas Balliet, but by then, Minta may have already established some sort of independent existence.

Precisely what Minta did during her late teens and early adulthood is a bit of a mystery. She does not seem to appear anywhere in the 1870 census. She was not living in the family home with her mother. Marancy, who had been widowed again, was sharing the dwelling only with Clifford. Brothers John and Fred had begun their lives as husbands and fathers. John, one year into his marriage to Nellie Martin, was in his own home in Winslow and would shortly thereafter move just across the Pecatonica River at Martintown, to begin living on and working eighty acres of land given as a dowry gift to Nellie by her father, Nathaniel Martin, the founder of Martintown. Fred and his new wife Penina Shreckengost had moved a few miles southward to a farm outside Lena, where Penina’s family had recently moved after years spent in Winslow. Minta’s youngest brother Charles had accompanied Charles McOmber (aka Macomber, McComber, McCumber) to Washington County, NE, where the McOmber family was attempting to establish a farm. It seems probable that Minta was dwelling as a single woman in a boarding house or helping out with domestic duties with a family and her name was not recorded in anything close to its correct form. She may have spent some of her late teens and early twenties residing in Jo Daviess County, which spans the territory between Stephenson County and the Mississippi River. The clue that suggests this is the back of the photograph reproduced above left. The image was created at a photography studio in Galena, a town in Jo Daviess County. Minta looks as though she could be in her twenties.

Minta was nearly an “old maid” when she wed 22 February 1872 in Green County, WI. Her bridegroom was John Ladd, a son of John Ladd, Sr. and his wife Jennette. John had been born in Bridgewater, PA in December, 1840. Along with a twin sister, Jennette Ladd, John was one of the youngest children of a large family. The Ladds had moved to Stephenson County, IL in the late 1840s. John and Araminta were probably acquainted with one another from mid-childhood onward, but for one reason or another did not rush into becoming spouses. One interruption was the Civil War -- John spent nearly three years as a soldier, a part of Company G of the 92nd Illinois Infantry. John’s family moved on to Story County, IA in the late 1860s -- he may have remembered Araminta as a sweetheart from his Winslow days and eventually came back to find her again.

Once married, the couple remained in Wisconsin for the next seven years. During the early part of this period Minta gave birth to the first two of their three children -- John Warner Ladd and Kate Ladd. This stretch also saw Minta’s three youngest brothers put down deep roots in Nebraska. Fred departed Stephenson County in 1872 with his wife and growing brood, obtaining a homestead in Butler County, NE next to his father-in-law Henry Shreckengost. Clifford either accompanied Fred, or joined him within a year or two. Neither brother would ever again reside in Illinois. Someone who would come back to Illinois was Charles McOmber. He and his wife and kids decided to return to Winslow, but having apparently sold their original parcel, bought the Warner place from Marancy. This transaction occurred in 1875. Charles Warner, meanwhile, chose to linger in Washington County. He perhaps took over the McOmber place, meaning the sale of the Winslow property to the McOmbers may have been a swap between the two families.

The sale left Marancy without a home. It has yet to be documented, but it would appear she moved in with Minta and John in Wisconsin. In fact, Marancy may have been with them since Clifford had left for Nebraska, and this may therefore have been one reason she was willing to sell her house and farm. Minta and John must have appreciated having a grandma figure in the house to help take care of little John W. and Kate.

Presumably the Ladd family were based in Green County in the middle years of the 1870s, though the only documentation of their whereabouts during these years is that the birthplaces of the kids as given in later censuses is Wisconsin, and Green County is logical given that the couple were married there, and Minta’s brother John’s home was there.

In 1879, the Wisconsin years ended. Minta, John, and their two young ones moved to Washington County, NE, where they began residing on a farm adjacent to that of Charles Warner. By that point Charles had recently married Mary Elizabeth Maurer. The bride had been a Winslow girl and was known to Minta. The two couples had apparently decided it would be a good idea to combine their resources, so to speak, and make their way together. This shared destiny would continue for another two decades -- the rest of Charles Warner’s life. The farms were somewhat in the vicinity of the town of Blair, which had recently been declared the county seat.

The land may have carried some sort of debt for one household or the other or both, or otherwise not as attractive as the frontier region farther west in the state, so in 1884 both couples decided to relocate to Knox County. They homesteaded adjoining parcels in Miller Township, about eight miles west of Creighton. (This spot is described in the 1885 state census as part of Lincoln Precinct.) Just before or just after the move, Minta and John became parents of their final child, Ira E. Ladd. Also around this time, if not earlier, Marancy became part of Charles and Mary’s household rather than that of Minta and John, with whom she is known to have lived with during at least some of the sojourn in Washington County.

These family members probably came to Creighton with the idea that it would serve for them as Winslow had served the prior generation -- a place to put down roots and perhaps a place to live out their lives. But the prairie soil was not as conducive to farming as the East had been. Keeping the land fertile and keeping the crops coming was a challenge. Some experts today are of the opinion that the region would have been more productive if it had been left as grazing land for buffalo. Minta and John, like Charles and Mary, gave it a good shot, staying put on their parcels for the remainder of the century -- Mary, in fact, continued to farm as a widow well into the 1910s. Gradually, however, Minta and John’s tie to their farm grew less fixed. First Kate moved out in 1891 to be the wife of Charles Monroe Davey. The following year son John began renting and farming his own parcel. In 1898, Charles Warner died, depriving Minta of the one sibling who had continued to be a regular part of her life. In 1901, Marancy also passed away. Finally Minta and John had had enough, and were ready to look for a new place to try their luck. They went to Hot Springs, Fall River County, SD.

Source documents differ as to when they made the move. A biography of John Warner Ladd published in 1912 mentions that his parents moved to Hot Springs in 1901. Minta’s obituary, published in Hot Springs in 1911, states that she and John arrived in the locale in 1904. Either date is late enough that Ira might have chosen to make his own way in the world, but instead he continued to be a part of their household.

Hot Springs, located at the southern end of the Black Hills, is so far west in South Dakota that it is practically a part of Wyoming. It was very much a frontier area at the time, only fairly recently settled by whites after the conquest of the Sioux nation. While John and Minta lived there, most of the local population still consisted of native Americans. Why the couple chose to tie their destiny to Hot Springs -- or more specifically, to the even tinier community of Cold Brook -- is a puzzle. Presumably it was a job; however, John’s occupation in the 1910 census is simply described as “laborer” and his position as “employee,” which doesn’t shine much light. That he was having to work at all at nearly seventy years of age indicates how relatively poverty-stricken he and Minta were. Another sign is that when they grew too feeble to continue this sort of life, they moved from Cold Brook into the Soldiers’ Home in Hot Springs -- that era’s version of an old-folks charity convalescent hospital.

The move to the Soldiers’ Home occurred in 1910. That winter Minta suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. She was able to recover some functionality in the succeeding months -- enough that she could walk -- but then was hit by another, more severe stroke toward the end of summer, 1911. She was left so weakened and affected that it became clear she was dying. Her son was summoned from Creighton, and he was able to be with his mother for about a week until she passed away 4 September 1911. Kate arrived three days later from her home in Spokane, WA, two days after her mother’s remains had been interred in Evergreen Cemetery. (There does not appear to have been a headstone created for Minta; her name is missing from a modern-day index created by genealogical volunteers who walked the grounds gathering names from the available inscriptions.)

John Ladd, Sr. must have gone back to Creighton, but this is an assumption derived from the fact that he was buried there. The date of death is not known, but it must have been in the 1910s, because John does not appear in the federal census of 1 January 1920. His grave can be found in Creighton’s Greenwood Cemetery. The marker oddly does not have his birth or death dates, only his Civil War stats.

Below is the gist of what is known about the three children of Araminta Warner and John Ladd:

John Warner Ladd (pictured at left) was born 16 July 1873 (or 1872 -- sources vary). His early boyhood was spent in whatever part of Wisconsin his parents lived in during the 1870s -- probably Green County. He was five or six when the move to Washington County, NE occurred, and about eleven when the family reached Knox County. Like his sister -- and very much unlike his little brother -- he struck out on his own at an early age. A profile of him published in the book Compendium of History, Reminiscence, and Biography of Nebraska, published in 1912 by the Alden Publishing Company of Chicago, confirms that he began renting his own parcel of farmland outside Creighton in 1892, when he was nineteen. He kept trying to make a go of this enterprise for ten years. If successful, he might not only have been able to purchase the land, but take over his parents’ parcel upon their retirement. Clearly both farms failed to support their stewards. His parents left Knox County, and about the same time -- specifically in 1902 -- John decided to become a town resident. He opened a livery business. After two years, he abandoned this venture and opened a meat market. He would make his living as a butcher throughout most of the next thirty years.

The opening of the meat market and the launch of his longterm profession coincided with a marriage. His bride was a widow, Elizabeth Johnson. She was about two years younger than John. She had been born in Sweden. Her maiden name had been Elizabeth Raynor. She had arrived in the United States as a teenager. In her early twenties she had married Alexander Johnson, who was also of Swedish extraction though he had been born after his parents had immigrated to Nebraska. She had borne him four children, counting one that died in infancy, and then Alexander had passed away. She was better known by the name Betty. She became Mrs. Ladd 16 July 1904. (The 1904 date comes from the Compendium; however, the 1910 and 1920 censuses indicate the wedding was in 1908.) Betty and John did not have biological children. However, her kids -- the three who lived to grow up were Herbert, Irena, and Johnny Johnson -- were young at the time of the wedding and so John would experience a significant tenure as a parent, albeit as a step-father.

John and Betty lived in Creighton into the 1910s, then moved to the nearby town of Winnetoon. Some time during the 1920s the couple moved to Idaho. Before the end of that decade, they were no longer living together. There does not appear to have been a divorce. Both are described as Married in the 1930 census, though Betty was by then in Gooding, Gooding County, ID, getting by as a cook at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and Blind. Meanwhile John was living on a farm just outside Twin Falls. He is listed as a laborer at the farm, boarding with the elderly, widower farmer. However, according to a story told by John’s first cousin Bert Warner forty years after the fact, John resumed his trade as a butcher while in Idaho. His death was a violent one. On Sunday, 15 July 1934, he was found in his shop in Twin Falls, gutted. No one knows whether it was murder or a bizarre form of suicide -- a butcher expertly dispatching himself utilizing the skills of his trade?

At this time nothing further is known about the last part of Betty Raynor Johnson Ladd’s life. Her son Johnny is known to have spent his retirement years in a “beautiful home” in Ovid, Sedgwick County, CO. He died in 1971. At the time Bert Warner spoke of that branch of the family in the 1970s, Johnnny’s wife was still residing at the home in Ovid.

Kate Ladd (shown at right as a small child, posing with her brother John) was born 30 November 1874. She married Charles Monroe Davey in 1891 in Niobrara, Knox County, NE. (This was the county seat, where they obtained their license and the same day prevailed upon the county judge to seal the union -- it does not necessarily mean they were residents of Niobrara.) Charles, a son of Walden M. Davey and Sarah Fellows, had been born 21 September 1863 in Beloit, Rock County, WI, meaning that he originated from the same general area as his parents-in-law and could well have been a citizen of Knox County as a result of the same Wisconsin-to-Nebraska group migrations of the 1870s. Kate and Charles lived in the Creighton area until after the turn of the century. Then, no doubt yielding to the same economic pressures that made Kate’s parents and brother give up their farms, the Daveys abandoned Knox County in favor of Spokane, WA. Here Charles ran a livery and subsequently became a teamster -- that is, a hauler of goods who owned a wagon and a team of draft animals. Kate is listed as a laundress in both the 1900 and 1910 censuses, another sign of how challenging the financial times were in the upper American West at the turn of the century. The hard times may have been a reason why the couple had only two children. The first of those two was a daughter. She was born some time during the early years of the marriage and passed away while still quite young -- family legend says she died at about six months of age. Alas, her name has not turned up. She was gone by the time of the 1900 census. The other child was a son. He was Harry Allen Davey, born 3 August 1898 in Knox County.

The household remained in Spokane for about ten years, from about 1905 to about 1915. By the end of that period, the burgeoning logging industry of Idaho had become attractive, and Charles, Kate, and Harry went there. Charles may have continued to haul loads for a time, but then shifted into logging. The family lived at first in Sandpoint, Bonner County, ID, as confirmed by Harry’s 12 September 1918 draft registration card and by the 1920 census.

Kate seems to have inherited her mother’s tendency for stroke, i.e. she no doubt suffered from high blood pressure and her doctor diagnosed her with hardening of the arteries by the end of 1917. Unlike her mother, she did not make it to fifty years old. Her son’s lifespan was only a little more lengthy, and he would develop the same health issues. Kate passed away 21 July 1922-- perhaps of a heart attack, but more likely of a massive stroke. The death occurred in Sandpoint. Her remains were interred locally at Lakeview Cemetery.

Charles Monroe Davey survived Kate by many years. He appears in the 1930 Federal census as a widower lodging in a boarding house in Orofino, Clearwater County, ID. Charles was possibly retired by 1930 as he is shown with no occupation, though everyone else in the boarding house has one, most of them being occupied in the timber/lumber industry in one capacity or another. Soon he was literally retired, and chose to do so in Valley, Stevens County, WA, tagging along with his son Harry, with whom he would live for the remainder of his life. Father and son arrived there no later than the mid-1930s. Charles enjoyed a lengthy “rocking chair” phase of life, able to watch his grandchildren growing up around him day by day. He did not pass away until 28 May 1950, well up into his eighties. The death occurred in Stevens County. His remains were interred at Valley Cemetery.

Harry (shown left) followed his father’s example and went into logging. By 1930, as shown by the census, he was no longer in Sandpoint, nor in Orofino with his father, but in Glover, Idaho County, ID. The census describes his job as “cedar pole cutting.” He was still single at that point. Given that he was in a dangerous occupation and given that he was living a lifestyle best suited for a bachelor, and given that Harry was by then the only surviving descendant of Araminta Warner left in the world, the family line might easily have gone extinct. However, Harry came to Valley, WA within a few more years, established a household with Elsie May Williamson, and over time fathered three children with her. Those three went on to produce a total of eleven members of the next generation, and today the Davey clan -- that is to say, Araminta’s line -- is robust and growing steadily.

In terms of longevity, Harry took after his mother rather than his father. A stroke claimed his life 8 February 1956 at fifty-seven years of age. This was well before the youngest of his children had grown up. He, too, perished in Valley and his body was laid to rest at the cemetery there. His grave and his father’s grave are side by side. Harry’s offspring are all currently alive, and reside in various parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Ira E. Ladd, who was born in July, 1884, passed away only a few years after his mother. He is listed as “Ora” E. Ladd in the South Dakota Death Index as having died 29 December 1915 in Spink County. (While no family source indicates when Ira died, there is little doubt that “Ora” is a typo for “Ira.” Ira E. Ladd does not appear in any public record after 1915, including his absence in the index of World War I draft registration records, a source which is known to include nearly all surviving American men of his generation.) Given that he died at only thirty-one, the cause was probably an accident, rather than another instance of the health issues that plagued his close kin.

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