Ford, Alfred M.

FORD

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 00:09:15

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.497

ALFRED M. FORD
Alfred M. Ford, who is successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits on his farm of one hundred and sixty acres, comprising the northwest quarter of section 10, Belmont Township, was born in what is now Lincoln Township, Warren County not far from Ackworth, in 1863. His father, W. H. Ford, was a native of West Virginia and there resided until he had attained the age of twenty years, when, in company with a cousin, John McGee, he came to Warren County, Iowa. He first located in Indianola but in the spring of 1867 took up his abode in Belmont Township, where he transformed a tract of prairie land into a finely improved farm, carrying on the work of the fields until the time of his retirement from active life. Removing to Milo, he there lived in well earned ease for some years, his death occurring in December, 1903, at the age of sixty-five years.
In his political views he was a staunch republican and for a number of years was identified with the Friends church, being a man of unfaltering integrity and upright life. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Hannah Maxwell, was born in Vermilion County, Illinois, and in the latter 1840s accompanied her mother to Warren County, being reared and married in this county. She was a lifelong member of the Friends Church and passed away on the old homestead farm May 2, 1888, when more than forty-five years of age.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Ford were born four children: Ella, whose death occurred when she was about four years of age; James E., of Lincoln Township; Frank H., residing in Des Moines, and Alfred M., of this review.
The last named, who is a cousin of Judge J. H. Henderson, of Indianola, has spent his entire life in Warren County with the exception of two years spent in Clay County, Kansas. He purchased a farm but later disposed of it and bought his present home place of one hundred and sixty acres in Bel­mont Township. Here he successively carries on farming and stock-raising, being widely recognized as one of the substantial and enterprising agricultur­ists of the locality.
Mr. Ford was here married in December, 1886, to Miss Mary Hornady, who was born in Wapello County, Iowa, in 1868, a daughter of Michael and Minerva (Butterfield) Hornaday, who resided in Warren County for a num­ber of years. The father passed away at Savannah, Missouri, in June, 1888, while his widow makes her home at Sandyville, this county, being more than seventy years of age. Mrs. Ford was reared in Iowa and was one of a family of eight children, nearly all of whom reside in this county. She has become the mother of four children, namely: Jeremiah M., born in 1888; Alva, whose birth occurred in 1891; Lester, born in 1893: and Annie, who was born in 1895.
Mr. Ford has always given stalwart allegiance to the men and measures of the Republican Party and is now a candidate for trustee in Belmont Township. He is a public-spirited citizen whose cooperation can be counted upon in every movement which tends to promote the moral, intellectual and ma­terial welfare of the community.