Deirup-Ladd

DEIRUP LADD

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/19/2010 at 22:45:35

Woodbury County History 1984

Deirup-Ladd
By John E Dierup

Early in the morning of June 4, 1873, Era Ladd with his wife, Susan, a married daughter, Ervilla (Mrs William Hollenback) and her three children and his son, Herbert, left Friendship, Wisconsin, for Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.

They had loaded two Conestoga convas-covered wagons with a few household goods, their clothing and food for their journey. Era and Susan drove the team of horses on the first wagon; Ervilla and her children drove the second wagon; and Herbert, or Bert as he was called, rode a horse driving eighteen head of cows and calves behind the wagons.

The days were long, tedious, and hot, and the travel slow because the cattle had to live on the prairie grass. In a few days they learned to follow the wagons, but there were always stragglers to be kept with the herd.

There were streams to ford and when they reached stage stations, the women and children slept at the station; other times beds were made in the wagons.

The raindays were the most dreary for these travelers, especially for three children and Bert who had to ride his horse in the rain. Once the children became sick, because, no doubt, the change of water.

On the eve of July 3, they arrived at the home of another daughter and her husband, Mr and Mrs William Parker, tired but happy to have reached their destination. Mr William Hollenbeck was also waiting there for his little family. It was just one month from the day they had left Friendship, Wisconsin.

Mr and Mrs Ladd stayed with the Parkers who ran a dairy, made butter, cheese, etc on the farm known then as the L M Brown farm, now owned by Mr Henry Larson.

Another daughter, Frances, had married Andress Hollenbeck, a cousin of William, and also lived in Woodbury Country.

In the spring of 1874, Era, Susan, and son, Bert, moved to a farm north and west of Sergeant Bluff, at the present time the home of Mr Wayne Grillet. On this was a very nice log house. Susan told many times how comfortable she was in that snug warm house.

A few years later Era purcahsed eighty acres south of their home, the last occupant being the Charles Gould family. This land is now part of the Sioux City Airbase.

They had lived here two years when Era died in 1878, leaving Bert and his mother to carry on. Times were very hard and Bert earned extra money whenever possible. He road with Mr Ervine Dewey, gathering cattle throughout the country. The boats came to the River with mercahndise, docking at Sioux City. When Bert heard the boats, which he’d help unload, earnign an extrad dollar for farm expenses.

It was during this time, when riding horseback from Sergeant Bluff to their farm, that Bert met two strangers riding beautiful horses. The strangers didn’t tell anything about themselves, but later were identified as part of the James Boys, who were on their way to Minnesota where they made an unsuccessful attempt to rob a bank at Northfield.

On December 24, 1885, Bert married Mrs Katie Patton, who had come with her little son, Earl, to teach school at Sergeant Bluff under Professor E A Brown.

Bert and his mother sold their farm. Mrs Susan Ladd moved to a litte house built in the yard of the home of her faughter and son-in-law, Mrs and Mrs William Hollenbeck, where she lived until 1903. Then she went to Valentine, Nebraska, to be with another daughter. She passed away in 1905 at the home of Mr and Mrs William Parker.

After selling the farm, Bert’s family moved to Hudson, South Daktoa, where Robert was born. Two years later, because of Katie’s health, the Ladd family moved to New Mexico. Here a daughter, Helen, came into the family.

In New Mexico, Mr Ladd and his family lived on a cattle ranch in an adobe house. The finish lumber for this house had been freighted in and was of natural cedar. One day while driving cattle across the Mesa, Earl was thrown from his horse onto a barbed wire drift fence, badly cutting his arm. When he finally got home, his mother took six stitches in his arm to close the wound. This wa swithout anesthetic for it was miles to the doctor.

Mrs Ladd did many such services for the peons who lived near and they adored him. Later as her health became better and the family more lonely for relatives and friends, Bert sold everything except a few horses and household goods. He put this into an immigrant car, put his family on the train and all came back to Iowa. They located on forty acres on what is now Christy Road. He did truck gardening until 1900 when he bought a farm three miles north of Sergeant Bluff.

After the family came from New Mexico, Earl attended grade school at the South Morningside School and then went to the Morningside Academy, the name of which was later changed to Morningside College.

He worked many years at the Sioux City Stock Yards living on his farm which was west of Lakeport Road. Later he rented his farm and moved to Moville, Iowa, where he was thrown from a horse and killed in August 1930.

From their farm home, Bob and Helen drove with horse and bugy to Sergeant Bluff to school and the horse was left during the day in one of the row sheds which was west of the Methodist Church. When Bob was a junior in High School, he decided to go to State College at Ames, Iowa, for a course in dairying. Then Helen rode horseback to Sergeant Bluff High School and graduated one of six in 1909 under Professor E A Burgess. In the dead of winter she often rode backwards to keep from facing the cold north winds. In 1911, she attended Pellsbury Academy at Owatonna, Minnesota, which was co-educational at that hime. She worked as a dray office worker.

In 1914, Robert shipped his horses and machinery to Missoula, Montana, where he met his wife, Jasamyn. The next year their little son was born and six weeks later he and his mother traveled overland sixty miles to the railroad and back to Iowa. Bob followed in a freight car with horses, machinery and household goods.

They lived in Iowa eight years. Robert was born here and both he and Leslie attended Sergeant Bluff School. In 1929, they moved back to Montana and later to Salem, Oregon, where they lived until death.

Helen was married to John E Deirup, December 8, 1917. He had enlisted in the Armed Services and left for Fort Logan, December 12. After sixteen months, most of which was spent at Newport News Virginia, in charge of a sheet metal shop, he was discharged in the spring of 1919, when they moved into their home in Morningside.

Mrs Ladd passed away in October 1924. Mr Ladd rented his farm and lived with his son-in-law and daughter until his death in March 1935. At this time only Helen Ladd Deirup and her family of the Ladd Clan remained in Iowa.

Mr and Mrs Deirup had three children: Kathryn, born 1922; Frances, born 1924; and John E, Jr, 1926. For many years they lived in the Morningside area. John operated a sheet metal shop, installing furnaces and had a hardware store on Lakeport Road with a confectionery shop connecting. Helen was in charge of this until she gave it up to raise her children. In 1936, the highway changed its route, which made much less traffic for business, and sold the hardware store and moved to the farm north of Sergeant Bluff, ‘The Old Home Place’. They had a very full and rewarding life together, celebrating their Golden Anniversary in 1967 with an Open House at the home.

Kathryn graduated from Sergeant Bluff High School in 1940 and attending Morningside College, graduating 1945. She lives on a farm near Morningside. She had a daughter, Kathy Ann, who graduated form Sioux City East High School in 1972 and Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa. She is married and lives in the central part of the state.

Frances (Mrs Guy Bosworth) graduated from Sergeant Bluff High School in 1942, attended Wayne State College. She had two children, Bill and Dana. Frances passed away in 1976. Bill lives in Odessa, texas, and has one daughter, Dana (Mrs Jerry Polson) lives in Durant, Oklahoma; she has tow boys. Guy Bosworth (Frances’ husband) was a pipeline welder who traveled all over the country. He passed away in 1981.

John graduated form Sergeant Bluff High School in 1944, attending Morningside College. He went to work at the Stock Yards for twenty-eight years with two of these years serving in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict. He helped his dad with the farming and continued working at the Yards, then went into construction laborer work. John married Elaine Larsen in 1955. They had two children: Craig John and Cynthia Ann. They both graduated form Sergeant Bluff High School in 1973 and 1976. Each one lives in Sioux City, Iowa, works at Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, and both are married. Craig was married to Marcia Luft in 1979 and Cynthia is married to Kimm S Nielsen, who is associated with Ben Fish Tire Company and has his own detective agency. They have a son, Matthew Scott, who is three years old.

This makes three generations who have graduated from Sergeant Bluff High School. The Ladd farm, purchased in 1909, is now in the center of the Industrial Interchange with I-29 and Highway 75 on both sides.

Helen and John, Sr, helped both truck stops to be established in that area. Through the years, Helen and John, Sr, had seen growth and tramatic change in the land. During that time John, Sr, became ill and passed away in June 1972; the same time, Helen fell and broke her hip.

At the present time this whole area consists of a large industrial complex with great future ahead for it.

Helen Ladd Deirup, now 93 years old, is presently living on the part of the Old Ladd Homestead, in a house she and her husband built in 1958.

Looking back over the century from a adobe house with no conveniences on a windswept mesa to modern homes with running hot and cold water, telephone, electricity, television, automobiles, and computers, one wonders what changes will come in the next one hundred years.