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​news

Looking Back: The Warren Family In Grain Valley History

9/10/2020

 
by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society    
 

     Benjamin (1803-1888) and Lucinda (1807-1877) Warren came from Tennessee to Missouri in 1848. In 1852, they purchased land and settled at Tarsney in Van Buren Township, just south of Grain Valley. Their ninth of eleven children, Nancy was the first to be born here.
      Their second child, Zachariah was born on March 2, 1829, in Robertson County Tennessee and came with the family to Missouri.  On April 24, 1850 he married Nancy Terrance Doty and they also had eleven children, 7 sons and 4 daughters. The fifth child, born May 20, 1856 was William Andrew Warren.
     It was William Andrew and his wife, Mary Susan Lynch (1851-1950)  who became prominent citizens Grain Valley. About 1900, he partnered with Thomas Webb to establish Warren Webb Hardware. The Warrens had three children, William Durwood Warren (1880-1962), Hartley Ellsworth Warren (1883-1943) and Creola Warren O’Connell (1885-1981). 
     William Durward, known to folks In Grain Valley as “WD” Warren, was born near Tarsney, graduated from Oak Grove High School (Grain Valley had no high school at that time) and Normal No. 2, or Warrensburg Teachers College (until 1919 when it became Central Missouri State  and later UCM). Mr. Warren taught school in Blue Springs before becoming a cashier at the Citizen’s Bank in Blue Springs from 1905 until 1918.
     That year he returned to Grain Valley where he was made bank cashier of the Bank of Grain Valley. He held this position until 1933 when he became bank president and chairman of the board. He retired in 1960 due to illness. 
     He and his wife Madge (Neer) Warren lived in the house at 602 Walnut Street. They had one child, Deloris (1907-1972) who married Howard Mollenkamp. The Mollenkamps and their two daughters, Mary and Linda lived across Charlotte Street at 514 Walnut Street.
     Ellsworth Warren was a cashier at the Bank of Grain Valley from 1905 to 1918. He married Charlotte Owsley and they had two daughters, Mary and Erma. Charlotte Street in Grain Valley was named for his wife. The older daughter was in bad health and her doctors recommended the family move to Colorado.
     Ellsworth’s career continued in banking in Alamosa, Colorado. The family then moved to Denver where he became manager of the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation. Their final move was to Wichita, Kansas, where Ellsworth was manager of the Federal Crop administration. He died in 1943.
     Creola married Mr. John T. O’Connell. In recent months, I have written about his tonsorial on Main Street and the O’Connell Service Station and Cafe on U. S. 40 Highway (Eagle’s Parkway).
     I do not know when the Warren House on Walnut Street was built. I do not know if it was built by the Warrens or if someone else lived there first, perhaps Ellsworth and his family. In 2001 several GVHS art students made charcoal drawings of some of the homes, churches and business establishments in Grain Valley. The Warren House is among those drawing displayed at the Historical Society.
     Drop by the Museum any Wednesday between 10:00am and 3:00pm to see the drawings. We also have a very thick notebook on the Warren Family, which was compiled by Patricia Davis Parr, great-granddaughter of William and Susan Warren.
 
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Jeff Owsley
10/10/2020 10:28:43 am

Thank you so much for all of these stories you are writing, Marcia. This is the one post that came up in a search for me where I found your blog, because my grandfather was Hartley Ellsworth Owsley, who was named after Hartley Ellsworth Warren. When Hartley Ellsworth Warren was in Alamosa as you mention, he and Charlotte seemed to have invited my great grandparents, Clarence Torrie Owsley and Emma Jennie (Hague, b1887 Pink Hill, d1976 Pink Hill, she must have moved back when Clarence died in Alamosa in 1953) to move to Alamosa when my grandfather was in high school. Several years ago I stopped in Grain Valley to do research on my family and found an article that reported James Harvey Owsley getting hit by a hand pump rail car and dying from the infection it caused in 1915. My theory is that sent the family into a downward spiral because I've heard that the Owsley family was one of the poorest two families in the area they moved to in a farming community just south of Alamosa. We are thankful to Hartley Ellsworth and Charlotte because the move eventually did what they probably intended: to give them a new start. The Owsley family has now generationally been strong community leaders in the area. We all heard many good things about Grain Valley through the years and therefore feel a connection to the community.


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