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 was an unusually delayed first birth by the standards of mid-1800s America, and probably means 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”). A number of distant relatives 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 Chapman White, Jr. were close by, as was that of her uncle Seba White later in her childhood. Both her grandmothers shared the home when Minta was little. Her father was reliably employed as a homesteading farmer and as a sawmill employee (possibly also as a miller of flour). 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 to the northern edge of 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, as will be described below, was in Nebraska in 1870. 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.

Minta finally acquired a husband at age twenty-seven. She was by then an “old maid” by the standards of her generation. The wedding took place 22 February 1872 in Martintown. Her bridegroom was John Ladd, a son of John Ladd, Sr. and his wife Jennette. John (Jr.) had been born 15 December 1840 on a farm near the community of Montrose in Bridgewater Township, Susquehanna County, PA. 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, settling in Waddams Township a few miles southwest of Winslow, and then in the 1850s moving to Winslow itself. John and Minta had surely been 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. And then after the war, John’s family moved on to Story County, IA. That suggests he may have remembered Minta as a sweetheart from his Winslow days and have eventually come back to find her. Another possible catalyst is that John’s older sister Mary Ann Gaylord lingered in Winslow into the early 1870s and, as a widow with five children, might have called upon her little brother to come back to the area to help her out. There is a chance the wedding was a somewhat rushed event, thrown together hastily. John’s father had died four days earlier. The wedding night may have been spent on the road to Iowa for the funeral.

Minta and John moved at least twice during the first half-dozen years of the marriage and it is not certain where they were at what junctures because the available sources do not paint a consistent picture. The couple definitely spent at least a fraction of those years within the state of Illinois and at least several of those years within the state of Wisconsin. They may also have paid an extended visit to John’s relatives in Iowa. There is, however, ample indication they were in Galena, Jo Daviess County, IL in the year 1873. The biggest clue is that Galena is the birthplace mentioned in her son John Warner Ladd’s obituary. Young John was born 16 July 1873. Another clue is that the photograph in the upper left corner of this biography, which shows Minta appearing to be in her late twenties. The image originated at a photography studio in Galena.

Young John was the first of two children born early in the marriage. The other was Kate Ladd. She was probably named in honor of members of both her paternal and maternal families, specifically Kate Mack (Mrs. Josiah Hilliard), Minta’s first cousin and a “older sister figure” that Minta had grown up with and is sure to have admired, and John’s sister Kate Ladd. In the case of both of those honorees, the name Kate was a nickname, but in the case of John and Minta’s daughter, Kate may have been her full name. Kate is all that is shown in all reliable sources.

Kate’s entry in the 1905 South Dakota state census confirms she was born in Martintown. This means Minta and John had taken advantage of the fact that her brother John Warner was well positioned in Martintown as the son-in-law of the village founder. By 1874, the economy was in bad shape due to the Panic of 1873, and it was a time when many Americans were forced to seek the haven of relatives prosperous enough to lend a hand. Minta’s mother and her littlest brother Charles did the same thing at this juncture. Chances are good Minta and John then remained in Green County for the next five years, and probably dwelled within a mile or two of Martintown. However, this has so far been impossible to confirm. They do not appear in Wisconsin in the 1875 state census, though this is “absence of evidence” rather than “evidence of absence” because that census only lists heads of households and number of other occupants by age and gender. Minta and John could easily have been boarding with someone and now it is impossible to say with whom, except that it was not the predictable options -- her brothers’ homes. The 1875 households of John Warner and Charles A. Warner do not contain an extra adult couple with two very young children.

Finally in 1879, Minta and John settled upon a plan for themselves, if only in the sense that they decided to hitch their destinies to her brother Charles, who even though he was the youngest of the family, seems to have had a natural confidence and competence that drew others in his wake. Back in the late 1860s, Charles had gone along with Winslow neighbors Charles and Tressa Macomber as the latter founded a farm in Washington County, NE, even though Charles (Warner) was at that point only in his mid-teens. Though he was only a farm hand for the Macombers, Charles apparently saw enough in Washington County to picture himself as a farmer there. Charles returned to his home and as described above, spent the mid-1870s dwelling with his widowed mother on or near the Martintown farm of his older brother John, but gradually his plans moved forward. Among other things, the Macombers decided to come back to Winslow. They made an offer to Marancy to purchase what remained of the old Warner homestead, which they then occupied for many years thereafter. The deal was consummated in 1875. Instead of paying all cash, the Macombers may have traded, handing over title to their land in Nebraska. In late 1878, Charles wed Mary Elizabeth Maurer of Winslow, a long-time acquaintance, and they took year-round possession of the Washington County land, which Charles may have been keeping up for a number of years as a bachelor. Minta and John chose to come along and acquire a parcel in the same general vicinity, i.e. within Sheridan Township and not far from Blair, the county seat. Marancy came along. She had shared Charles’s home in the past and may have done so for most of the second half of the 1870s. It is more likely she stayed with Minta and John during those years, helping care for her Ladd grandchildren. Marancy was definitely part of Minta and John’s household in Washington County, because this is shown to be the case in the 1880 census.

The farms were not quite next to one another in Sheridan Township, but generally speaking the new arrangement allowed the two couples to combine their resources and make their way together. This joint-enterprise mode would continue for another two decades -- the rest of Charles Warner’s lifetime. However, the two couples were based in Washington County for only the first five years of that span. The land may have carried some sort of debt for one household or the other or both, or otherwise was not as attractive as the frontier region farther west in the state, so in 1884 both couples decided to relocate to Knox County. This time the homesteads were literally adjoining, each taking up 160 acres of Section 18 of Miller Township, located about eight miles west of the village of Creighton. This was close enough together the two couples may have arranged their houses around the same yard straddling the property line, and perhaps using the same barn and root cellar, so as not to have to construct -- and endure the expense -- of separate infrastructure before they had started to earn any income from their new real estate. Just after the move, Minta and John became parents of their final child, Ira Earl Ladd, born in July, 1884. Also around this time, if not earlier, Marancy became part of Charles and Mary’s household rather than that of Minta and John, probably because Charles and John had a greater number of kids and they were all young, whereas John W. and Kate were well into their school years. The latter began attending the Miller Township school, which surviving historical records confirm was made of sod bricks. Chances are very high the original residences of the Ladds and Warners were sod-brick construction as well, quite possibly “dugouts,” the partial-subterranean home style used by pioneers to insulate themselves from the full effect of winter snow and winter wind.

The Ladds and Warners probably came to Knox County with the idea that the place 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. And for a few years, this goal seemed attainable. The area grew. Farms filled in. Settlers began building wood-frame homes in spite of the need to import lumber from outside of the area. (Knox County did not have timber suitable for milling into building material.) Fences went up. Railroad service brought greater connection to the outside world. Yet as time went on, Minta and John were confronted with the uncomprosing reality that the Great Plains was not as forgiving to farmers as the East was. Some unusually cold weather hit during the late 1880s, and then the first half of the 1890s saw a tremendous and sustained drought that drove many homesteaders out of the state for good. Minta and John were not able to hold out as owners. Some time in the mid-or-late 1890s, they sold their parcel, probably to Charles and Mary Warner, whose farm is shown as double-sized on a 1903 parcel map of Miller Township. By then, son John Warner Ladd had been renting land for a while in Logan Township, just to the west of Miller Township. Minta and John moved there, combining forces with their boy, who had never moved out of the family home, and had taken care of his acreage by commuting to it each day. (It remains possible the Logan Township place that the Ladds worked together at the turn of the century was not the same piece young John had acquired early in the 1890s, but it seems likely it was.)

Probably one thing that made Minta and John’s situation overly challenging was the health of Ira Ladd. He was mentally retarded -- and perhaps physically impaired as well. This was probably congenital. It may have been an instance of Down’s Syndrome. Or it could be the boy suffered a severe fever in early childhood that cooked his brain. Whatever the cause, Ira was so profoundly impaired that he would never be able to attend school, nor could he learn the skills needed to ever be able to maintain an independent life as an adult. He needed lots of care. Minta and John accepted this burden and did not shift it on to other hands until they were old and were no longer capable of continuing due to their own decrepitude.

In the face of the hardships, Minta and John’s loyalty to Knox County withered away. Two family deaths within a short span undoubtedly helped sever the bond. The first was in 1898, when Charles Warner succumbed to stomach cancer at only forty-four years of age. A little over three years later, Marancy died. This second death was more expected, coming as it did when Marancy was getting on in years, but Minta had had enough sorrow and needed a change of venue. She and John departed in 1901 for Hot Springs, Fall River County, SD, hundreds of miles westward. Daughter Kate and son-in-law Charles Davey came along, either literally travelling together, or making an equivalent relocation at approximately the same time, having themselves become discouraged by their prospects in Knox County after ten years there as a married couple.

Why Hot Springs? There may have been a couple of specific things that lured Minta and John there. One was the presence of John’s older brother Henry Ladd. The other was that Hot Springs was the site of a Soldiers’ Home -- that era’s version of an old-folks charity convalescent hospital. Because John was a veteran, treatment for Ira may have been available through the auspices of the Soldiers’ Home.

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 Minta and John lived there, most of the local population still consisted of native Americans. John appears to have taken whatever jobs he could to get by -- the censuses variously describe him as a laborer or employee. For several years Minta and John did not live in Hot Springs itself but in the even tinier community of Cold Brook, just to the north (and in modern times, within the boundaries of Hot Springs). That John 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. By that point, Kate and Charles Davey had already gone on to Spokane, WA.

In the winter of 1910-11, 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 John 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, 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 only survived Minta by four months. He probably spent his final fragment of life being cared for by his son John back in Creighton, where John W. had been living since 1902. He died 16 January 1912 and is buried in Creighton’s Greenwood Cemetery. (Headstone photo taken 2012 by Gayle Neuhaus.)

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

Effective November, 2013, the biography of John Warner Ladd has been given its own page. You will find that page by clicking on his name.

Kate Ladd (shown at right as a small child, posing with her brother John) was born 30 November 1874 in Martintown. 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 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. The Davey homestead was right next to the Ladd homestead in Miller Township, so it was a case of Kate marrying “the boy next door.” The couple probably spent the early part of their marriage in Miller Township, only to be forced to try other things by the drought-caused farm failures of the first half of the 1890s. They gravitated to the village of Creighton, where they remained until the early-1900s move to Hot Springs.

Some time after 1905, Kate and Charles moved to Spokane, WA. This was probably an “any port in a storm” destination, chosen somewhat at random. It is true that Kate’s first cousin William Ladd and his wife Nunie arrived in Spokane at about that same time, where they would continue to reside for decades. However, William’s presence was probably not much of a lure. He had been raised in Iowa and he and Kate undoubtedly barely knew one another. Nor did Spokane hold Kate and Charles for long, though for other reasons it happens to be home today to a significant fraction of her living descendants.

In Spokane, 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 the 1910 census (same occupation as in 1900 back in Creighton), 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 when she was at most a toddler. Alas, her name has not yet 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 less than ten years, i.e. only until 1915 or so. 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 up in the wilds of Idaho County. 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 great-grandchild 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, the estranged wife of Charles Calvin Edward Love, and over time fathered three children with her, as well as helping her raise her daughters Mabel and Lois Love. Harry’s three biological children 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, based for the most part in the Pacific Northwest.

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 clan in general has enjoyed better longevity. His daughter Alice May Davey died in late 2009 in her early seventies -- in the two years before her death, she contributed some of the information needed for this webpage.

Ira Earl Ladd, who was born in July, 1884, appears to have continued to be cared for by the staff at the Soldiers Home’ in Hot Springs after the death of his parents. This situation endured until 1915, when he was transferred to the State School and Home for the Feeble Minded in Redfield, Spink County, SD. (Decades later this would become Redfield State Hospital.) The transfer may have occurred because of Ira’s declining health. He passed away in Redfield 29 December 1915.

Children of Araminta Warner with John Ladd

John Warner Ladd

Kate Ladd

Ira Earl Ladd

For genealogical details, click on each of the names. (Kate and Ira’s individual pages have not yet been activated. See their summarized biographies above.)