George S. S. Ward was born on January 5, 1841, either in Ohio or England, to George Ward and Mary King. By the early 1860s, he was probably living in Missouri. When the Civil War erupted, he enlisted in the Union army, mustering in as a private in Company B of the 18^th Missouri Infantry on May 4, 1861. The regiment took part in the Battle of Shiloh, the siege of Corinth, the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, and the Carolinas campaign.

 

He moved to Howard, Iowa, after the war, and he married Mary Jane Leighton around 1869. They had thirteen children, including: George, born around 1870; Marietta, born around 1873; Charles, born around 1874; Clara, born around 1876; Rose, born around 1877; Milly, born around 1880; Bertha, born around 1881; Lillian, born around 1883; Ira, born around 1886; Elmer, born around 1888; Melvin, born around 1891; and Silas, born around 1893.

 

Ward worked as a farmer in Iowa, probably working on his father-in-law’s farm. By 1870, he owned $520 of real estate and $230 of personal property. The family moved back to Missouri around 1877 before settling in Valley, Kansas, around 1880. He supported the Republican Party, and he served as Valley’s town treasurer in the early 1880s. They moved to Kansas City, Missouri, sometime in the 1880s, and he eventually began working as a stonemason. He applied for a federal pension in July 1890 and eventually secured one. He remained in Kansas City for the rest of his life, and he died there of myocarditis on February 14, 1923.

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