Jim Ward's Genealogy Pages 

Inez Bellows & The Hudson/Ward Connection

Inez Bellows Strouse (1887 - 1980) was the daughter of Mary Alice Peel and Elliot Orrison Bellows.  Some of the genealogical information my Uncle Ed gathered about the Wards and Hudsons in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada, came from interview-style letters exchanged during the early 1970s.  Mary Alice Peel was the daughter of my GGgrandmother Mary Hudson by her first marriage to John Peel in Perth, Lanark County, in 1854.  While Inez's memory was incomplete about the birthdates of her Grandparents and names and birth dates of her Great-Grandparents, some of her responses to my uncle's questions proved to be a nice surprise. 

Inez wrote responses to my uncle's five-page questionnaire and added several paragraphs plus a typewritten page about Edward and Frances (Robertson?) Hudson and how they met. Her responses are underlined for clarity. 

• Question 5.  Peel (your grandfather) first name - John. no response to bmd info.
• Question 6. John Peel (Uncle) - Killed blasting rock for Can. Pacific R.R., not married.
• Question 7. Mary Hudson Peel Ward - where buried - Maple Valley Catholic Cemetery; Did she  marry Edward Ward in Canada? Yes. What town? Perth.
• Question 8. Some ancestors were concerned with a Catholic School in Canada.  Do you know what town? Perth.  Name of school? Art and English School.  What ancestor? Spanish Grandmother and G.F. John Hudson.  Anything else?  The school was patronized in 1936.  The family Catholic Cemetery is located in Perth.
• Question 10. Edward Ward had a brother living in Langston: Was he Thomas Ward?  Yes.  Do you know his wife's name?  Mary.  Children's names:  Lillian?  Deceased.  Lillias?  If alive, lives in Perth, Ont.  Fred?  Lived in Coral (deceased).  Anything else about them?  I think that Fred might have children in that vicinity (Coral) or Greenville.  The name PECK is involved, do you know how?  Lillian Ward, daughter of Tom and Mary, married a man named Peck.  They formerly lived in Texas.  Lillian taught school in Langston.  I talked with Gladys Ellsworth tonight, and (Lillian) was her first teacher. She also spoke of the mother Mary Ward and her beautiful contralto voice.
• Extra, handwritten on back of last interview page:
• When your Grandmother Ward died (Mary Hudson Peel Ward, in 1886), she left three children, Edith, Alphonsus, and Blanche, who was only seven.  It was a real situation for all, so my mother took Blanche and gave her a home until she was married.  She married John Klees of Ferris Township.  His farm joined my father's on the north.  They had three children:  Hazel, Jack, and Grace, who died when quite young.  Your Aunt Edith accomplished much in later life.  She attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was a successful music teacher.  Did you know that your father was Deputy Sheriff when my father Elliot was Sheriff?  He (Alphonsus Edward Ward) lived with us nearly four years.
• Typewritten page #1, dated 16 February 1972,  included the following:
• Dad and mother (Elliot O. and Mary Alice Peel Bellows) lived at Six Lakes about 1886 - 87, and conducted a General Store.  While Mother was in Langston looking after the Ward family after our Grandmother's death, the store and the apartment above burned to the ground, and with it all the data, keep-sakes, and pictures, which would be so helpful at this time.  Mother always mourned the fact.
• Typewritten page #2, undated:
• Paragraph 1.  On a trip to Canada in 1936, I visited the old Hudson home in Perth, Ontario, the former home of our Grandmother and birthplace of my mother, Mary Alice Peel (your father's half-sister). The house is a cottage in very good condition and occupied by a Hudson family.  An old lady who was very ill was not able to see me.  She might have been a cousin of your father and my mother.
• Paragraph 2:  Our Great grandmother was a native of Spain; educated there and possessed an artistic ability.  She later studied that subject in England.  On the boat to England, she met a Mr. Hudson, who was in the employ of the English government.  After a short romance of three weeks, they were married and went to Perth, Ontario, where they established an Art School and added other subjects.  It is a Catholic Institution and was still in existence the last that I knew.
• Paragraph 3:  I also visited the Ward homestead just out of Perth, where for many years it was in the possession of the two spinster sisters (Martha and Anne) of your Grandfather Ward.  It is now owned by Lillias Ward Donovan, a cousin of your father.

Notes:

According to the 1884 Pine Township, Montcalm County, Michigan, Census, Thomas K. Ward's wife was Maria, not Mary as Inez wrote.  In the same household were two unrelated persons listed as servants: Christine Jensen, single, age 31, born in Denmark, and Aaron H. Dill, divorced, age 33, of Indiana, whose parents were born in Penn (Pennsylvania?) and Ohio.

The 1894 Census Index for the same township has an entry for Ward, Blanche E., "see Bellows, Elliot O." (confirmed above by the writings of Inez Bellows Strouse), and Edith E, "see Briggs, Zenus E."  That maybe has something to do with the Oberlin Conservatory reference?  Edith married Fred Moffatt in Stanton, MI., 22 July 1895.

Lillias Ward, daughter of Thomas and Mary/Maria Ward, married Charles Donovan, date/place unknown, and later moved to Perth, Ontario, and inherited the old farm of Patrick and Anne Keating Ward after the passing in 1917 of Anne Ward.  Lillias passed away in 1970 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Perth with her husband, who died 25 February 1961.  I have an .rtf file of most Wards and Hudsons buried in the county of Lanark.  Need a lookup?

For more information, see:  Ward Page,  Hudson Page,  Graves Page