W. C. Ward, a successful farmer and stockman of Butler county, is a native of Indiana. He was born in 1864, and is a son of James F. and Narcisus (Timmons) Ward. The father is a native of Indiana and the mother of Maryland. James F. Ward came to Kansas in 1869 and settled in Butler county. He was one of the very earliest settlers of this section of the State, and when he came here El Dorado was only a small hamlet with two or three stores.

W. C. Ward has spent practically all his life in Butler county, and has seen this section of the State develop from a broad, unbounded waste

of unbroken prairie to its present high standard among the counties of the State of Kansas. Mr. Ward has made general farming and stock raising the chief occupation of his life and has been very successful in this line of endeavor.

Mr. Ward was married in 1907, to Miss Lulu Oxford, a native of Kentucky and a daughter of William Oxford who now resides in that State. Mr. and Mrs. Ward have one child, Charles.

A mere boy when he came to Kansas, W. C. Ward has seen much of the pioneer life on the plains, he has seen devastation wrought by prairie fires, storms and floods and passed through all the lean and uncertain years of the early days in Butler county, and while he received a good common school education in the public schools, his greatest schooling has been, like many other successful men, in the hard school of experience. He is a practical man, a close observer and has ever been a student of men and affairs, and is one of the substantial citizens of Butler county.

Previous | Main Page | Biography Index | Next

Pages 798-799,