E. A. Ford

E. A. FORD, president of the Waldo State Bank, has had a wide range of business experience in spite of his age, and has been everything from a farmer and school teacher to a traveling salesman and a financier.

The Waldo State Bank was established in 1902 with a capital of $15,000, and it has surplus and profits of $7,000. It is a well managed and conservative institution, and has the complete confidence of all its large patronage in that part of Russell County. Its officers are: E. A. Ford, president; F. S. Rockefeller, vice president; and Vernon Bradshaw, cashier.

Mr. Ford was born in Vermilion County, Illinois, July 2, 1878. His Scotch-Irish ancestors have been in America from colonial times. His grandfather, Washington Ford, was born in Ross County, Ohio, in 1826. In early life he moved to Warren County, Indiana, where he cleared up and developed a farm and died there in 1903. The maiden name of his wife was Elizabeth Tharp, a native of Indiana, who also died in Warren County.

William Ford, father of E. A. Ford, was born in Warren County, Indiana, in 1847. He was reared and married there and in 1874 moved to Vermilion County, Illinois, where he spent the rest of his life as a farmer and died there in 1897. He was a republican, an Odd Fellow and a member of the Christian Church. William Ford married Mary L. Black, born in Fulton County, Illinois, in 1854 and died in Vermilion County in 1886. She was the mother of three children: Orin I., an electrician living at Plano, Illinois; E. A. Ford and H. B. Ford, a veterinarian in the service of the United States army at Chickamauga Park, Georgia; Ethel, wife of Lester Worley, a farmer in Warren County, Indiana, who is a daughter by his second wife.

E. A. Ford attended the rural schools of Vermilion County, Illinois, and finished his education in the Normal School at Valparaiso, Indiana. He left school in 1899 and had four years of active farming experience in Warren County, Indiana. He also taught school one year in that county. From 1902 he was in the telephone business at Freeland Park, Illinois, two years.

Coming to Kansas in 1904, Mr. Ford first located at Zendo in Kingman County. In 1905 he entered the Weinschenk State Bank as assistant cashier, was promoted to cashier, and remained in the institution until 1907. From 1907 to 1910 he was traveling representative of William Y. Morgan, and for another year traveled for the Western Lithograph Company of Wichita. In 1911 he came to Waldo as cashier of the Waldo State Bank and has been its president since 1918.

Mr. Ford is a member of the Kansas, the Kansas State and the American Bankers' Association. He is a republican voter and is prominent in Masonry, having affiliated with Zenda Lodge No. 378, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Russell Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, Wichita Consistory No. 2 of the Scottish Rite, and he is also a member of Hutchinson Lodge No. 514, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

June 29, 1913, at Waldo, Mr. Ford married Miss Helen McChesney. Mrs. Ford was born at Waldo, and her mother, Mrs. Mary McChesney, is still living there. One child was born to their marriage: Robert E. Ford, born in February, 1915.

Pages 2134-2135.