Lawrence Russell Ford (1901 - 1974)

Born 20 Oct 1901 in Falmouth, Pendleton, Kentucky, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Ann (Wallis) Ford — married 30 Aug 1923 in Morris IL

Descendants

Died 24 Mar 1974 at age 72 in Fort Myers, Lee, Florida, United States

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Biography

Lawrence was born in 1901. He passed away in 1974.

Timeline

• 1901-10-20, Born near Falmouth, Pendleton County, Kentucky, United States
• 1902-12-16, Age 1, Mother Joanne Eva Roberts (Monroe) gets a court order forcing Lawrence Milton Ford to marry her in Pendleton, Kentucky, United States (which, obviously, didn't last long)
• 1905-08-15, Age 3, Birth of half-brother Kirtley Owen Ford in Falmouth, Pendleton County, Kentucky, United States
• 1906, Age 4, Living in Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky, United States
• 1906, Age 4, Living at East Third Street, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio, United States
• 1910-04-16, Age 8, Living with brother Kirtley (age 4) and mother who is working as a live-in Servant for Coppin family at Lakeview Park, Covington, Kenton County, KY^[1]
• 1911-11-09, Age 10, Death of half-sister Ruby Reava Roberts
• 1915-04-14, Age 13, Death of father Lawrence Milton Ford (age 36) at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Covington, Kenton, Kentucky, United States. Murdered in a bar fight.
• 1920-01-05, Age 18, Living at 912 Banklick St, Covington, Kenton County, KY with mother and brothers Kirtley Ford (age 14), Melvin Roberts (age 25) and Wilbur Roberts (age 22)^[2]
• 1923-08-23, Age 21, Married Mary Ann Wallis (age 18) at Gould Park in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois.^[3]
• 1924, Age 22, Bought a house in Sandwich Illinois at 509 North Ash Street
• 1925-01-04 Age 23, Birth of son Lawrence Russell Ford, Jr. in Sandwich, DeKalb County, Illinois. (ibid)
• 1926-08-09 Age 24, Birth of daughter Audrey Joyce Ford in Sandwich, DeKalb County, Illinois. (ibid)
• 1928-08-02 Age 26, Birth of son (Private Person) in Aurora, Illinois. (ibid)
• 1930-04-30, Age 28, Living with Wife and Children in Sandwich, DeKalb, Illinois^[4]
• 1932-02-17 Age 30, Birth of daughter (Private Person) in Big Rock, Kane County, Illinois. (ibid)
• 1933-05-20 Age 31, Birth of daughter (Private Person) in Sandwich, DeKalb County, Illinois. (ibid)
• 1936-04, Age 34, Bought a house in Aurora Illinois at 756 Liberty Street.
• 1940-04-18, Age 34, Living with wife and children in Aurora, Kane, Illinois, United States^[5]
• 1941-11-20, Age 40, Death of mother (age 70) at St. Elizabeth's Hospital Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky, United States of America^[6][7]
• 1946-04, Age 44, Bought a house in Sandwich Illinois at 927 North Latham St.
• 1966-09, Age 64, Retired after 44 years from the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad
• 1974-03-24, Age 72, Death in Fort Myers, Lee, Florida, United States.^[8] Buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Sandwich, Illinois.^[9]

Narrative

Autobiographical excerpts from the Ford Wallis Genealogy^[10]:

l, Lawrence Russell Ford, will now write some of my own personal history for the benefit of those who are interested. I was born October 20, 1901, near the city of Falmouth, in Pendleton County, Kentucky, and my earliest certain remembrance is of the birth of my younger brother, Kirtley Owen Ford, on August 15, 1905, shortly after nightfall, during a thunderstorm when Mother sent me to a neighbor's house for help during the storm and I slipped on the wet path going down the hill and fell.

Our mother, Joanna Eva Ford, was separated from our father, Lawrence Milton Ford, and our two older brothers and one sister were being cared for by friends and a relative. (These three older children were of Mother's first marriage to Melvin Thomas Roberts.)

Mother had a difficult time trying to support herself and us two boys by doing housework at several farm homes and finally went to Cincinnati, Ohio, about fifty miles north of where we had been living, where we lived on East Third Street and Mother worked in a restaurant while a friend took care of us boys and her own small daughter. I was about five years old at this time and remember selling newspapers at one time, getting ten papers for five cents and selling them at one cent each. This arrangement only lasted a few weeks and Mother finally placed Kirtley and I in the Protestant Children’s Home in Covington, Kentucky, for awhile and she worked as cook and housekeeper until she was able to start housekeeping again.

About 1910 we lived at 17 East Ninth Street in Covington and our two older brothers, Melvin and Wilbur Roberts, came to the city from up in the country and found work, and with Mother still doing housework by the lay, she was able to keep the home together for several years until after I was married, August 30, 1923, when she then moved to Independence, Kentucky, and lived with our brother Wilbur who owned a barber shop there.

We lived at several different places in Covington and the summer of 1914 we lived in Indiana near Guilford, where Melvin was working for Jim McMillan at farm work. He had lived with Jim and Addie McMillan several years since they lived on Grassy Creek near Gardnersville. Kirtley and I attended grade schools in Covington and I entered high school in January, 1917, but I failed to return to classes in September as I had been employed as an errand boy in Cincinnati, during the summer months, at a wage of $6.00 per week of 44 hours and as I was almost 16 years old, at which age I could legally quit, I used as an excuse that Mother needed my earnings and that was the end of my formal schooling!

I worked at several factory jobs in Cincinnati and a short while in the Roundhouse of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in Covington, and in December, 1918, I went with a shipment of workers to Camp Knox (now Fort Knox), Kentucky, near Louisville, where I spent the winter at various construction jobs from digging ditches to grading roads and was awhile in the saddle barn currying the horses. The Camp was being built and we lived in Army barracks and ate at large mess halls at 35 cents per meal. Wages were 35 cents per hour for common labor. The Camp was used by some military units but was mostly in the early stages of construction. Returning home in the spring of 1919, I was soon at work again in a factory and in the fall of that year I agreed with a couple of my friends that we would go to Florida and we stopped in Atlanta., Georgia, where we worked in a candy factory a few weeks, boarding on East Hunter Street where board and room was $7.00 per week. My friend, William L. Marsh, and I started on south but only made it to Adel, Georgia, where he and I spent the winter working on separate farms and the following spring we returned to Atlanta and worked all summer in construction work, first as laborers and then as carpenter apprentices but by the end of July, 1920, we had had enough of that and decided we would like to go to sea so we signed up with the United States Shipping Board which was recruiting for the Merchant Marine and with perhaps twenty other young fellows, we were sent to Newport News, Virginia, where we lived at an old Army camp known as Camp Stuart and attended classes in seamanship. We took a training cruise in a wooden Liberty ship, the Utokia, to Portland and Bar Harbor, Maine, and on our return we were expected to find a berth on one of the ships in port as ordinary seamen, being given liberty each afternoon for that purpose. But berths were rather hard to find and my buddy signed up as a coal passer in the black gang while I held out for a job as deck hand and not being able to get a ship, I returned home and spent the winter as usual in factory work.

In the spring of 1921 another friend of mine and I started for California and we arrived in Los Angeles in the latter part of April and in a few days I was working as a pearl diver (dish washer) in a Greek restaurant in Long Beach, where I stayed all summer spending my afternoons and evenings on "The Pike" (the recreation area), and on the sand and in the surf, leaving in late August and working at the Corona Del Mar Ranch near Goleta California, where I culled English walnuts. I don't know how large a place this was but there were some forty or fifty of us transient workers employed in the walnut and bean harvest but I did notice that even a few acres was called a ranch.

Started for home again in about three weeks or so but stopped in Wyoming and worked with an Extra Track Gang laying rail for the Union Pacific Railroad at Tipton. Seemed as though the wind was blowing constantly there and at the first sign of snow I was on my way home again and entered Illinois for the first time at East St. Louis on Thanksgiving day, 1921, never dreaming that in less than a year Illinois would be my future home.

Arriving home I returned to a former factory job in Cincinnati, Mills Brothers Manufacturing Company, makers of food products including the well known "Zanol" products which are sold door to door by agents.

I stayed with them that winter and the summer of 1922 but in September my pal, William L. Marsh, who was with me in Georgia had returned from his seagoing job, suggested that we ship out for work on the railroad so we went to the hiring office in Cincinnati and signed up as Car Repairers for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and were sent to the freight repair tracks at Aurora, Illinois, though we bad hoped to go farther west. We soon moved to a boarding house in sandwich, Illinois, some 22 miles west of Aurora, and rode the special shop train back and forth to work. This train at one time was carrying seven coaches of workmen to the shops and remained in service about six years or so.

On my twenty-first birthday, October 20, 1922, 1 suggested to a couple of friends that we should celebrate the day by having a day off from work. This they agreed to and we loafed around town and stopped at Minor's Cafe to ask if they sold lee cream and my eye was caught by a very pretty waitress standing near the back of the dining room. Very soon I was having all my meals there and we had our first date November 9th, 1922. This young lady, who to me was the very essence of young womanhood, was destined to be my future wife. Her name was Mary Ann Wallis and on August 30, 1923, we were married at Gould Park in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois, by Judge William Viner and were the honored guests of the Grundy County Farm Bureau and the Morris Chamber of Commerce at their annual picnic. As bride and groom, we received some seven hundred dollars in cash and merchandise from the various business establishments which was a great help to us in furnishing our home.

We started housekeeping in a few rented rooms and in 1924 bought a house at 509 North Ash Street in Sandwich for $100.00 down and $20.00 a month, total price $1500.00 for a two-story six room house on large lot.

...we moved to Aurora in April, 1936, buying a two-story seven room house at 756 Liberty Street from the Improvement Building & Loan Company... We lived there until April, 1946, when we moved back to sandwich where we were able to buy ten acres with large nine room, two-story house and barn in the northeast corner of the city at Arnold and Latham Streets, now known as 927 Latham... This property was sub-divided in 1952 into 29 lots and is recorded as Ford's addition to the City of Sandwich, the home place being on Lot 1, Block 1, and we are still living there at this time.

In September, 1966, I completed 44 years of service with the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad and retired from that service on November 30, 1966...

Most of service with the railroad has been as a welder though I have also served as lead mechanic, carpenter, mill machine operator, and air brake cylinder cleaning and testing. When I started on the Rip Track (Freight Car Repair Track) on September 10, 1922, as a mechanic the wage was sixty-three cents per hour and when I retired the rate for welders was $3.07 per hour and many fringe benefits such as eight paid, holidays, a very good hospitalization program paid by the company, $4000.00 death benefit, and four weeks vacation per year at full pay after 15 years service.

End of Lawrence R Ford Autobiographical stories

Other random family notes:

• Lawrence Ford married Mary Ann Wallis. His half-brother Kirtley married Nancy Wallis (Mary Ann's sister)

Historical Context

Selected Historical Events During Lawrence's Life:^[11]

• 1901 (Age 0) - Queen Victoria Dies
• 1901 (Age 0) - Edward VII becomes King of England
• 1903 (Age 2) - Wright Brother’s First Flight
• 1906 (Age 5) - Azusa Street revival
• 1910 (Age 9) - George V becomes King of England
• 1919 (Age 18) - Prohibition Begins
• 1920 (Age 19) - Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
• 1927 (Age 26) - Lindbergh Nonstop to Paris
• 1929 (Age 28) - Wall Street Crash
• 1931 (Age 30) - C. S. Lewis becomes a Christian
• 1933 (Age 32) - Prohibition Ends
• 1933 (Age 32) - The Dustbowl
• 1933 (Age 32) - Hitler Becomes German Chancellor
• 1936 (Age 35) - King Edward VIII Abdicates
• 1936 (Age 35) - Edward VIII becomes King of England then Abdicates
• 1936 (Age 35) - George VI becomes King of England
• 1937 (Age 36) - Hindenburg Disaster
• 1939 (Age 38) - Start of WWII
• 1940 (Age 39) - Dunkirk
• 1941 (Age 40) - Pearl Harbor
• 1944 (Age 43) - D-Day
• 1945 (Age 44) - Germany Surrenders WWII
• 1945 (Age 44) - Hiroshima
• 1945 (Age 44) - Bonhoeffer executed
• 1947 (Age 46) - Dead Sea Scrolls discovered
• 1948 (Age 47) - Birth of Israel
• 1949 (Age 48) - China becomes Communist
• 1949 (Age 48) - Los Angeles Crusade catapults Billy Graham
• 1950 (Age 49) - Korean War Starts
• 1950 (Age 49) - Mother Teresa founds Missionaries of Charity
• 1952 (Age 51) - Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England
• 1955 (Age 54) - Rosa Parks Bus Ride
• 1957 (Age 56) - USSR Launches first Satellite Sputnik
• 1958 (Age 57) - US Launches first Satellite Explorer 1
• 1959 (Age 58) - Castro Takes over Cuba
• 1961 (Age 60) - Berlin Wall Goes Up
• 1961 (Age 60) - Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space
• 1961 (Age 60) - Alan Shepard becomes first American in space
• 1962 (Age 61) - Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1963 (Age 62) - JFK Assassinated
• 1963 (Age 62) - MLK I Have a Dream Speech
• 1966 (Age 65) - Aberfan Disaster
• 1967 (Age 66) - First Super Bowl
• 1967 (Age 66) - Six-Day War
• 1968 (Age 67) - Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated
• 1969 (Age 68) - Moon Walk
• 1969 (Age 68) - Concorde First Flight
• 1972 (Age 71) - Watergate
• 1974 (Age 73) - Nixon Resigns

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2D1-5WQ : accessed 30 June 2022), Evelyn Ford in household of John R Coppin, Covington Ward 5, Kenton, Kentucky, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 112, sheet 3A, family 48, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 488; FHL microfilm 1,374,501.
2. ↑ "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHGZ-R4G : 1 February 2021), Eva Ford, 1920.
3. ↑ Immediate family records
4. ↑ "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSYM-HMQ : accessed 6 July 2022), Mary N Ford in household of Lawerence Ford, Sandwich, DeKalb, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 29, sheet 12A, line 47, family 353, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 510; FHL microfilm 2,340,245.
5. ↑ "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KWHK-15B : 8 January 2021), Mary Ford in household of Lawrence Ford, Aurora, Kane, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 45-39B, sheet 3B, line 59, family 60, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 820.
6. ↑ "Kentucky Death Records, 1911-1965," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NSQS-CYM : 2 March 2021), Eva J. Ford, 1941; citing Death, Covington, Kenton, Kentucky, United States, certificate , Office of Vital Statistics, Frankfort; FHL microfilm 1,913,552.
7. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/124436419/eva-joanna-ford
8. ↑ "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VVQK-1WZ : 25 December 2014), Lawrence R Ford, 24 Mar 1974; from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : 2004); citing vol. , certificate number 19859, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.
9. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/95623441/lawrence-russell-ford
10. ↑ Ford - Wallis Genealogy 1750-1968 by Lawrence Russell Ford published in October 1968 by the Sandwich Free Press, Sandwich Illinois
11. ↑ Adapted from numerous history timelines

• Death Certificate, Wedding certificate, Wedding annoucement, copy of newspaper announcement