Charles H. Ford was born in 1878 at Beloit, Wisconsin. He came to Barnes County as a youth to work as a farm hand.

In 1899, he married Edith G. Alderman of Getchell Prairie. She was born in Palmyra, New York in 1881.

The Fords made their home with the bride's parents, the John Aldermans, for several years before homesteading Section 22 in 1902.

The Fords had three children; Lillian, Melvin and Harold. Harold was born three weeks after the accidental death of his father in September, 1906. Mrs. Ford moved into the Alderman home and continued to farm their homestead.

A widow for twenty-two years, she married Fred Smith in 1928. In 1946, the Smiths retired and Mr. Smith passed away in 1952.

Lillian Ford, a teacher for many years, married A. R. Moffat in 1938. Melvin worked for the Occident Elevator for many years and passed away in 1970. Harold Ford married Laurine Dreis of Dazey in 1928. They were the parents of three children; Donald, Dorothy and Kenneth. Donald (Dr. Donald Ford) teaches at California State University. Dorothy married Laurence Diemert in 1954. He died in 1959 and she then married Eugene Klein of Eckelson, North Dakota. Kenneth married Sharon Hartman of Kulm, North Dakota.

Harold farmed for forty-five years and retired in 1969 to Valley City. Mrs. Edith Ford Smith died in 1964.

Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 71