Charles & Bertha Ford

FORD WRIGHT SAGER ROOT

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 8/27/2010 at 21:44:22

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Charles and Bertha (Wright) Ford
By Leon Ford Harrison

Bertha Jane Wright was born in Plymouth County, October 17, 1819, to John A and Henrietta Sager Wright. John A Wright was born April 4, 1842, near Milford, Indiana, and died in Banner Township, Woodbury County, Iowa, July 6, 1922. Interment was in Graceland Cemetery, Sioux City, Iowa. In 1868, he moved with his parents to Kalamazoo County, Michigan. He was united in marriage with Henrietta Sager in 1871. It is believed they came West by covered wagon between 1877-78 as they located on a farm near LeMars on June 2, 1879. They had tow children when they came, Anjenette, born in 1873 and Emerson, born in 1876. Four more children were born: Bertha 1874; Grace 1878-1880; Frank 1881; May 1888. In 1888, the family located on a farm in Banner Township which continued to be their home until their deaths.

Bertha’s mother, Henrietta Sager, was born in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, December 4, 1855, and died in Banner Township, Iowa, November 8, 1930. Interment was in Graceland Cemetery, Sioux City, Iowa. Her father’s name was Eli Sager, 1834-1916, and her mother was Edna Ann Harrison, 1838-1904. Edna’s father was Alexander Harrison, 1811-1887, and her mother was Elizabeth Roe, 1813-1887.

Bertha grew up on the farm and attended school at Banner Number One and little did she know that one day she would have grandchildren attending that same school. She always said there lot of hard work to be done on the farm and when her mother became sick she had to quit school to help out with the housework. She and Charles Ford were married by Rev. Graves of Moville, Iowa, in ther parents’ home in 1899.

Charles Ford was born in Climax County, Michigan, March 24, 1874, to William and Flora Root Ford. There were ten children in the family: Ashton, Edward, Arthur H, Osias, Calvin, Birdie, George, Vanevery H, Charles, Ina and Deo. Birdie, born in 1865, died in 1867; and Ina, born 1877, died in 1879.

Charles’ father, William Ford, was born in Huron County, Ohio, into the pioneer home of George and Anna (Lyons) Ford, who were natives of New York. William’a father was of Scottish antecedent, his father, James Ford, having been born in Scotland and reared in Ireland. He immigrated to this country shortly after the American Revolution. George was a tailor by trade and was engaged in that work for several years in New York and Ohio. While living in Ohio in the wilderness of Huron County with his wife and two children he owned at different timess three farms there. He traded a farm for land in Alamo Township in the spring of 1846 and moved thre with an ox-team. Later he was severly injured by a failling tree and was never able to work afterwards.

William, Charles’ father, had to start at an early age to help support the family. His mother died when he was two years old and his sister married so more and more tasks fell on his young shoulders. Later he worked and eventually built a substantial residence in 1879. He married Flora E Root, April 29, 1859. She died March 14, 1890, and in 1892, Charles came West to Lake Madison, South Dakota. He seined fish for a man known as ‘The Old Dutchman’ and worked there all summer. It is believed he came to Iowa that Fall. He lived around Neptune, Iowa, for a while and was joined by a broterh, Osias ‘Oat’. He worked at awhatever he could find to do and ran a threshing machine for some years. He worked also on farms until his marriage. His father remarried but he never went back to Michigan except to attend his father or brother’s funerals.

After his marriage to Bertha Jane Wright, November 23, 1898, they moved to Leeds where he worked in a Tannery for a number of years. During this time three chidlren were born: Lester Laurence, 1899-1932; Lora May 1902, and Arthur ‘Art’ Merritt, 1906-1982. The family moved to the parental J A Wright farm whre Leona ‘Onie’ Fern was born in 1908. In about a year the family moved again to a farm near Kingsley, Iowa, where Charles worked for Mrs Lavina Harding. The children attended the rural school except for Leona who was too young at the time, in 1915, the family again moved, this time to Moville, Iowa, where Charles had purchased a home on the edge of town. This was their last move and Charles, Bertha and Arthur continued to live thre until their deaths.

Charles did carpenter work and some of the buildings in Moville have known his workmanship. He became the sexton of Arlington Cemetery around 1919. Lora and Arthur helped out by clipping the grass around the stones with scissors. The old fashioned push mower was used for cutting the rest of the grass. He was very particular about the way the cemetery looked and kept it neat always. Bertha carried lunch out every day the family worked. Transportation was by foot. He was sexton until 1952; then Art took over after nearly two years in the army.

After Bertha’s daughter, Leona ‘Onie’ Harrison, on a farm adjacent to the old John A Wright land. After suffering a stroke he entered the Leeds Nursing Home where he died in 1959. Internment was in the Arlington Cemetery in Moville that he had cared for so many years.

Art, having never married, continued to live on in the old home and care for the cemetery and when he died suddenly in 1982, a fund was started for memorials for both Charles and Art. Today gracing the entrance to each of the two big new gates (also a part of the Memorials) stand two lovely monuments dedicated to each of them for their years of dedicated service at the cemetery.