Frederick Warner

Frederick Warner, third of the five children of John Warner and Marancy Alexander, was born 7 March 1849 in Winslow, Stephenson County, IL. His name possibly was spelled without the “k” on the end, in the manner of his grandson Frederic R. Warner, but this is uncertain. Likewise, any middle name he might have had is not available. He tended to go by Fred Warner in his adult life. That version, for example, appears on his gravemarker.

Fred was raised entirely in Winslow. While small, both his grandmothers, Lois Warner and Olive Alexander, dwelled in the household. This abundance of parental and grandparental presence vanished over the course of the 1850s, as Olive passed away in 1853, followed by father John in early 1858, and at some point Lois moved to the nearby home of her daughter Cynthia White Mack. By 1860 at the latest, Marancy was the only adult left in the household, and twelve-year-old John was working to try to support the family. It must have been an insecure period for Fred and his siblings, but they weathered through, no doubt helped in part by the nearby presence of their father’s half-siblings, Seba White, Cynthia Mack, and George C. White.

Also living nearby in Winslow was the household headed by Henry Shreckengost and his wife, the former Mary Ann Miller. They were from Pennsylvania, having moved to Illinois in 1850 or early 1851, shortly after the birth of their eldest child, Penina Jane Shreckengost. (Penina was born 9 January 1850.) Their family was still growing at that point, and would reach seven children by the mid-1860s. Fred and Penina (often known simply as Nina) may have first encountered one another at school, but they probably met even earlier than that. John Warner, Sr., before his untimely death, had been a Winslow miller. Henry also worked as a miller, and it is quite possible he and John worked side by side in the mid-1850s. If not, they certainly would have known each other as colleagues. In their teens, Fred and Penina became romantically involved, and married one another 7 March 1869, probably in Winslow. The date was also Fred’s twentieth birthday. Penina had recently turned nineteen.

Frederick Warner and Penina Shreckengost. This may have been a photograph taken in honor of their wedding, but they were young when they married, and appear more mature here than they would have been at that point. The original was surely a tintype, but this was scanned from a reprint made some time in the late 1800s. The print, a wallet-sized one on card stock, was at one point the property of William P. Miller (b. 1832), Penina’s uncle. In the 1960s, the print came into the possession of Fred’s nephew Albert Frederick Warner.

The following February, Fred and Penina became parents of their first child, Edward Charles Warner. It is not quite clear whether they were still in Winslow when the baby arrived. The 1870 census, effective in June of that year, places them on a farm a bit southwest of Winslow -- still in Stephenson County, but more in the vicinity of the small communities of Waddams Grove and Lena. That was where Henry and Mary Shreckengost had moved.

The Waddams Grove/Lena-area farm was a temporary haven. In the fall of 1870, Henry Shreckengost and his brother-in-law William P. Miller set out with a team of horses and a light wagon in search of a suitable place to homestead west of the Mississippi River, where so much new land had become available for settlement as the U.S. Army pushed back the native tribes. The travellers explored through Iowa, down into Missouri, west into Kansas, and then came back north until they found what they were looking for in Butler County, NE. As a result of their exploration, a major exodus of families headed from Stephenson County to Butler County beginning in the spring of 1871. The early group included the Armagost, Lawver, Bobb, Lapp, and Price families in addition to the Millers and Shreckengosts. Fred and Penina took part, either with the initial wave or by the following year. Certainly they were in place by the time of the birth of second child Lillian in the autumn of 1872, because all records agree she was born in Nebraska. Both Fred’s name and Henry’s name appear on a list of original homesteaders of Butler County. They laid claim to adjoining acreage in Reading Township. As the population rose a village sprang up only a few miles away. It was called Rising City because some of the local pioneers had the surname Rising.

The entire Henry Shreckengost family committed to making new homes in Butler County. Penina therefore did not have to endure a sudden parting from her birth kin. Fred, on the other hand, had to cope with a near-complete and “forevermore” separation from his mother and siblings, aside from visits, which were no certain thing in those days before paved roads and automobiles. The one exception was that his brother Clifford either came with him as part of the original migration, or joined him in 1873 or 1874. Clifford married Penina’s sister Ella Andora Shreckengost in 1875. As far as can be determined, Clifford and Ella spent the first five years of their union somewhere in Butler County, and probably in close proximity to their relatives, but in early 1880 they left in order to farm near the juncture of Greeley, Nance, and Boone Counties. Two of Fred’s other siblings -- youngest brother Charles and older sister Minta -- did spend decades residing in Nebraska, but they chose to live first in Washington County and then in Knox County, neither of which is near Butler County.

Some time in the first half of the 1880s, Fred and Penina sold their homestead and moved to David City, the seat of Butler County. This was not much of a move geographically. They ended up barely ten miles at most from their former haunts. However, David City was larger and more developed, and had more to offer than the farming lifestyle. For example, by the end of the decade when Ed was getting into his late teens, he was able to get a job with Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad Company, and became a depot agent. His first posting was in David City, so he continued to live with his parents.

Never again would Fred and Penina live in Rising City, but they never lost their connection to the community. To the end of her days, Penina could count on a core of kinfolk welcoming her back any time she cared to visit. Her brother Clemens and his wife Cora Armagost established themselves right in the village, raising their adopted son Charles Hibbard Shreckengost there. Next door lived the youngest of the Shreckengost siblings, Minnie Rae, and her husband Vache Dickerson, along with their two daughters. Spinster sister Ida Lorena “Rena” Shreckengost shared the latter home. When Hibbard grew up and obtained a house of his own with wife Florence Baker, he chose to live right next to his parents and his two aunts.

Penina had not given birth since Lillian had arrived in 1872. A limited family size was the rule among the Shreckengost clan, and maybe that was the reason, but if the couple did hold back by choice, they must have either reconsidered, or “had an accident.” It's probably safe to assume they did not expect twins, but that is what happened. The babies were born 4 August 1888. Like many twins, they were probably somewhat premature and on the small side. One twin did not survive. In fact, this child was left off the genealogical lists family members put together in the mid-Twentieth Century, an indication the death might have taken place at birth or within a few hours. The only surviving documentation to confirm the baby’s existence is a notation in cemetery records of a “Penina Warner” who was buried in 1888. That may be an abbreviation for “Infant of Penina Warner,” but probably means the baby was a girl and was named after her mother. The surviving twin was Frances Mildred Warner.

In 1890, a tremendous drought hit Nebraska. It would go on for five years. Hordes of residents gave up and moved out of the state during that half decade. Fred and Penina were among them. They retreated back toward the east, ending up in Sac City, Sac County, IA. Son Ed served as a station agent there. His employment situation may have been what triggered the migration; however, it is also possible the family had already landed in the vicinity, and that is why Ed went looking for work there. The relocation brought the Warners to “kinder, gentler” spot, the Raccoon River Valley -- often better known as Coon Valley -- with good soil, water from a major tributary of the Des Moines River, and ample woodlands. That said, the house was within Sac City and Fred got by as a carpenter, not as a farmer.

Fred passed away 3 September 1899. This date is known from the marker on his grave. His remains were interred at the usual Miller-Shreckengost resting place of that era, which was Pleasant Hill Cemetery, located four miles east of Rising City in Union Township, Butler County. (This is an odd name because the land there is flat, without a “hill” in sight.) Penina must have wanted her husband placed beside their deceased child. Chances are the couple had purchased the plot back in 1888. Fred is unlikely to have died in Nebraska. He surely passed away in Iowa, and his body was taken by train to the burial site. (The headstone is shown above right. Photograph taken 23 August 2016 by Dave and Connie Smeds. The headstone of Fred’s sister-in-law Ella Shreckengost Warner lies just to the left, out of view. Ella was buried there in 1940.) Fred had only made it to age fifty. The cause of his demise is unknown, but early death was the pattern in his immediate family. His younger brother Charles had already passed away by then, having succumbed the year before at only age forty-four.

This image of Penina Shreckengost Warner is almost Addams Family-ish with its ghostly, macabre quality. It comes from a collection of family photographs preserved by Emma Warner Hastings, daughter of her brother-in-law John Warner. Emma wrote on “Aunt Nina” on the back. Judging by Penina’s apparent age, the photo was probably taken between 1900 and 1910.

Where Penina, along with Frances, who was only eleven years old when her father died, spent the early 1900s is not clear. They do not seem to appear anywhere in the 1900 census. The 1905 census places them with Lillian and her husband, dentist Perry Horton Jones, in Clear Lake, Cerro Gordo County, IA. After graduating from dental school, Perry had established his first practice in that community in 1896, Lillian joining him as a bride two years later. It is quite possible Fred and Penina had become based in Cerro Gordo County in the 1890s, but somehow no enumerator managed to visit the home where Penina was based as a widow. The county would have lured Penina to it because it was home to her aunt Abiah Zimmerman Shreckengost, the widow of her uncle Daniel Shreckengost, a beloved matron of the clan. Daniel and Abiah had stayed in Winslow when Henry and Mary Ann had moved to Waddams Grove and then to Butler County, but later had gone on to Cerro Gordo County, where Daniel had passed away in 1893.

After Frances came of age and became a wife, Penina lingered with Lillian and Perry. Her presence in their home meant she was able to care for her grandson, Donovan Warner Jones, freeing Lillian to assist at Perry’s office. However, when Perry and Lillian moved to Florida in 1912, Penina stayed in Iowa, becoming part of her younger daughter’s household. The 1920 census shows her as a widow residing with Frances and Frances’s first husband Carl Bowers. Their home was also in Cerro Gordo County, but in Mason City rather than Clear Lake, Mason City being where Abiah Shreckengost and her descendants were also to be found.

As far as is known, Penina remained with Frances through her death, which occurred 20 September 1923. She was buried with Fred in Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

Penina is in the center of this group. This photograph was taken in the summer of 1923 at a Shreckengost family gathering that took place just months before Penina died. The locale is probably Rising City. Note how white Penina’s hair became in old age. Identifications: The children in front (including the adolescent girl toward the left) are almost certainly the offspring of Hibbard Shreckengost, adopted son and heir of Penina’s brother Clemens. The young couple on the far left are Penina’s nephew Marion Henry Warner (wearing the cap) and his wife Alma Lena Reitz Warner. Alma is holding one-year-old Marion Clifford Warner in her arms. The four adults way in back are, left to right, Minnie Rae Shreckengost and her husband Vache Dickerson (the tall fellow with the big white mustache), Alden Robert Moural, and Penina’s niece Martha Mary Ann Warner Moural. The remaining adults, the ones arrayed immediately behind the children, are (left to right) Frances Mildred Warner Bowers, Penina Jane Shreckengost Warner, Ella Andora Shreckengost Warner, Clemens Nelson Shreckengost, and Cora D. Armagost Shreckengost.

In brief, here are descriptions of the lives of the children of Fred Warner and Penina Jane Shreckengost:

Edward Charles Warner, born February 1870, was already a full adult when he reached Iowa with his parents, but apparently had not found a Butler County girl to be his wife. It does not seem to have taken him long after getting to Sac County to meet and woo Maggie Judd, five years his junior. Wed on Christmas Day, 1894, they lived at first in Sac County. (The photograph at left shows Ed and Maggie early in their marriage. It may even be a photograph taken at the time of their wedding.) By the end of the decade they had moved a few miles east into Calhoun County, and not long after shifted halfway back. This brought them back within Sac County, but into the more easterly part, putting them in Coon Valley Township rather Jackson Township. The changes of venue seem minor by 21st Century standards, but back in the days when automobiles were experimental and the locals all still used horses for transportation and plowing, moves such as those meant a new set of neighbors and new acreage to develop, and indicate Ed and Maggie had not found their preferred situation. A sign they might have been less than content with their financial circumstances is their hesitation to add to the family. Their daughter Ruth did not appear until early 1899. Son Frederic came along a couple of years later, but it was 1905 before the next child, George, was born -- this was ten years into the marriage. However, some of Ed and Maggie’s hesitation may also have stemmed from having lost their very first baby, a son, who survived for only six days in November, 1897.

In 1906 (or about then), Ed and Maggie homesteaded in Applegate Township, Lyman County, SD. Their land was not far south of the Stanley County line and just west of the Lower Brulé Indian Reservation. (The homestead was along one of the main native trails and Indians would pass by on an almost daily basis.) There they would remain for half a dozen years, during which time another two children, Ruby and John, were born. Unfortunately, the homestead was in the midst of a region better left to the buffalo. Even now, in the 21st Century, the population of the county is only a few thousand. Eventually Fred grew weary of trying to eke out a living from poor soil. By no later than the end of 1912, they family came back to rural Coon Valley Township, Sac County, in the vicinity of the community of Wall Lake. They may or may not have come back to the parcel they had earlier cultivated. Here the last two of their children, Bert and Gene, were born.

(At right is Ed in middle age with his first automobile, a Ford) A brief summary of the lives of the seven surviving children: Ruth chose to be a Sac City gal to the end of her days. And her days were long. She finally passed away in 1995 at nearly ninety-six years of age. (Her daughter lived out her entire life in Sac City as well.) The other Warner/Judd children moved during the Great Depression to Chippewa County, WI, where they went on to live variously in such places as Holcombe, Cornell, and Cadott (living mostly in rural settings near these towns). Most or all of these relocations occurred during the Great Depression. Chippewa County was home to the sons more or less for good with certain exceptions. Three sons -- John Bert, and Gene -- spent time away while serving in the military in World War II and in the Korean War, and then Gene decided, after thirty years in the Navy, to retire to Coronado, San Diego County, CA. The five sons passed away one by one from 1978 to 2005. Ruby went with her brothers to Wisconsin, but came back to Sac City when the war started, where she married again. She died died of cancer in August, 1960. This means she was the only one of the family other than her unnamed stillborn brother to fail to reach at least seventy years of age.

When Maggie died 17 October 1937, Ed joined his sons in Chippewa County. Ruby, a divorcée at the time, took care of him. Early in the war years he came back to Sac City -- and Ruby and her daughter Margie Anne Wade came back with him. Ed was a widower just short of a decade, succumbing 2 May 1947. His body was placed beside that of Maggie at Cory Grove Cemetery. The graves of a number of their children, including the infant son lost in 1897, can now be found there as well -- even though arranging this sometimes meant that remains had to be transported from Chippewa County.

The vast majority of Ed and Maggie’s surviving descendants reside in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. A small number are still based in Sac County. What that means is that this is a family branch that can be described as less far-flung from the roots in Winslow, IL than the other lines who spring from John Warner and Marancy Alexander. However, this is not universally true of every last member of the group. A few now live as far off as Texas.

Six of Ed and Maggie’s kids circa 1958 on the farm of George Edward Warner near Cadott. Left to right, Ruth Warner Gustafson, Frederic Ralph Warner, George Edward Warner, John Henry Warner, Imbert Michael Warner, and Eugene Charles Warner.

Mary Lillian Warner, born September, 1872 in Nebraska (probably in Butler County), was known mostly by her middle name, and several sources list Lillian as her first name. (An example is the 1920 census.) For the most part, after adulthood she appears as Mary L. in formal public records. She shared much the same upbringing as her brother Ed, inasmuch as they were so close in age. She, too, moved to Iowa as a young woman with her parents, though she was old enough to have been married by then. She would have likewise been part of the move to Cerro Gordo County, assuming that was a whole-family relocation. If not, she may have gone there on her own. A dental appointment may have been the means of meeting the man she would marry. He was Perry Horton Jones, son of Murray P. Jones and Amelia Elna Horton. Perry had been born 21 November 1867 in Boston, Erie County, NY -- his grandfather Nathaniel Jones having been a pioneer of that community -- and had come with his parents and siblings to a farm near Allison, Butler County, IA (not to be confused with Butler County, NE) in 1879, where he had subsequently spent his teen years. He had attended dental school in Iowa City, and then had established his initial practice in Cerro Gordo County in Clear Lake. He and Lillian were wed 12 October 1898 in Omaha. He would continue to serve the community of Clear Lake as a dentist for another fourteen years.

Lillian came to the marriage as an “old maid” of twenty-six, but she was certainly still young enough to anticipate quite a number of pregnancies. Circumstances seemed ripe for the Joneses to have a big family. For fourteen years in Clear Lake, and then another three-dozen and more years in Florida, they led a highly stable existence. Perry presumably enjoyed a reliable income as dentist -- he must have, as he maintained that profession until he retired in old age. (In Florida, he also farmed, but this no doubt means he had enough income from dentistry to buy a lot of land.) Moreoever, the spouses seemed to have been compatible -- their marriage was an until-death-parts-us sort of thing. And yet the couple’s one and only child was Donovan Warner Jones, who was born in Clear Lake 16 July 1900. It is likely that there were medical reasons why Lillian did not give birth again. The home was not as empty as it might have been, though, as Lillian’s sister Frances resided there until her marriage in late 1909, and mother Penina remained even longer.

In 1912, Lillian and Perry moved to LaBelle, FL, and then within a few years shifted about a dozen miles westward to Alva, Lee County, FL. Their presence there lured widowed Frances Warner, who would from then on always live near them -- probably literally with them at first.

Perry passed away 28 April 1950, dying precisely three weeks after Frances’s second husband, which made for an awful month for the Warner sisters. Lillian succumbed at the beginning of 1953. The precise date has yet to surface, but her obituary was published on the tenth of January.

Donovan, who married multiple times, sired two biological sons. He also helped raise a stepdaughter from his second marriage and a stepdaughter and stepson from his third marriage. All three kids were adopted by him and came to adulthood with the last name Jones. (He also had a stepson from his first marriage, but the child appears to have remained in the household of his biological father.) He spent portions of his life in Georgia and South Carolina, but ended up back in Florida. Despite being in his forties when World War II broke out, he served in the U.S. Navy, being among the survivors of a vessel sunk at Guadalcanal. He passed away 10 December 1987 on Merritt Island, Brevard County, FL (where Cape Canaveral is located). As of 2017, one of his sons, though now very old, is still alive. One of his stepdaughters also survives.

Frances Mildred Warner was, as described above, a later-in-life child, and for that reason was much doted upon, and depended upon, by her mother. She was born 4 August 1888 in David City, or on acreage just outside of that town. She was sometimes known by the nickname Frankie. (If you visited this website prior to December, 2014, you would have seen a photo of Frances’s double first cousin Martha Mary Ann Warner at left. It was scanned from a print that was mis-identified back in the 1950s or 1960s. The one you see now is properly identified and really is Frances.)

Frances married Carl Leroy Bowers, a native of Hancock County, IA born 27 February 1886. He was a son of Charles Wesley Bowers and Effie Blanch Mosher, and after the early death of his mother, had been partly raised by his Bowers grandparents in Clear Lake, which accounts for him meeting Frances. The wedding took place at the home of Perry and Lillian Jones 12 October 1909. By the time of the event, Carl had established himself as a bookkeeper for a grain and lumber company in Mason City. The couple immediately settled in Mason City, and appear to have spent the entirety of their somewhat brief marriage in that community, though they moved from house to house with some frequency. When Lillian and Perry moved to Alva, FL, Penina Warner moved in with Frances and Carl. Apparently Penina preferred to remain in Iowa than go all the way to Florida.

Carl Bowers died 7 October 1920. Three years later Frances lost her mother as well, leaving her on her own. Nevertheless she lingered in Iowa for a significiant interval -- the 1925 census shows her as a roomer in a large Mason City boarding house -- before joining Lillian and Perry. Once in Florida Frances met and married Kentucky-born John Davis Tandy, a descendant of Kentucky pioneers. The wedding occurred in 1927. She and John appear to have spent their whole married life in Alva, where John was a bookkeeper. (Frances must have found bookkeepers attractive.) For at least eight years the pair lived either right next door to the Joneses, or even shared their home. Some time after 1935, Frances and John obtained their own house on a two-acre parcel, but they remained in the same neighborhood.

John died 7 April 1950. As mentioned, Perry Jones would then pass away just three weeks later, making that spring a somber period for the Warner sisters. Lillian followed in 1953. Having already sold her home in 1951, Frances moved on to the Miami area -- no doubt to be looked after there by her nephew Donovan Jones. Frances expired in that locale 7 July 1956. Her body was interred five days later with first husband Carl Bowers at Clear Lake Cemetery in Cerro Gordo County, IA. This was the case even though she had been married twice as long to John as to Carl. She and John apparently had agreed they would not share the same grave. When John had died in 1950, Frances had accompanied his remains to Bowling Green, KY to be laid to rest among his kinfolk, and perhaps next to his first wife.

The genealogical line established by Fred Warner is still modest in size. George Edward Warner fathered three children. Ruth Warner Gustafson had only one. Ruby Warner Wade Leonard also had only one. Ed’s other four sons had none. Donovan Jones sired only two biological children. This means Fred Warner only had seven great-grandchildren -- even less than the number of his grandchildren, which already was somewhat low at eight (or nine if we count Ed and Maggie’s short-lived firstborn son). For that reason, the total number of Fred’s descendants is still only in the dozens, rather than the many hundreds that make up the clans of his brothers John and Clifford. Happily, even today the line endures.

Some of Fred Warner’s descendants in 1934. The eldest individuals here are Edward Charles Warner and his wife Maggie Judd, with Frances Warner Tandy near Maggie. The other individuals are Ed and Maggie’s children Eugene (way in back), Ruth (on the far left), Ruby, and Imbert (on the far right) and grandchildren Nina Luanne Gustafson and Margie Anne Wade.

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