Charles Ives

Submitted by Marrie Miller

Coming to Crook county, Wyoming, soon after reaching his majority, and living within her borders ever since, Charles Ives of Pleasant Valley, five miles north of Sundance, has passed nearly the whole of his mature life as a productive and improving factor in the civilization and development of this portion of the state. His native home was in Kankakee county. Illinois, where he was born on August 11, 1861. His parents, Myron and Mary (Yorks) Ives, were engaged in farming in that county for a number of years and then removed to Howard county, IA, where they again farmed, passing fourteen years at that occupation in that county. In 1882 they sold their interests in Iowa and took another flight towards the setting sun, locating at Spearfish, S D, where they remained four years, cultivating the soil also there, at the end of that time moving to Crook county, Wyo, where the. father took up a ranch adjoining the one now occupied by his son, Charles, and engaged in ranching and cattle raising until his death in June, 1900. Since then the mother has made her home with her children in Crook county and at Spearfish, S D. She was born at Jersey City, in the state of New Jersey, and in childhood came west to Indiana with her parents, later removing to Illinois, where her husband was born and reared and where they were married. Charles Ives grew to manhood and received his education in Howard county, Iowa, and accompanied his parents to Spearfish, S D, in 1882. There he worked on ranches and on the farm with his father until they came to Wyoming, when he homesteaded the ranch on which he now lives, which is one of the desirable places in a region of great fertility and beauty, the well-known Pleasant Valley, on which nature has smiled with lavish kindness. His ranch is five miles north of Sundance and yields as the results of his labor and its fertility good annual crops of grain and hay, and furnishes a substantial basis for his stock industry and bountiful provision for his herds and flocks, which are constantly expanding in volume and value. In addition to the land he owns he has several ranches rented, the most of which he also has under cultivation. On November 11, 1896. Mr Ives was united in marriage with Miss Edna Allen, a native of Minnesota, but then living at Spearfish where the marriage was solemnized. Her father, Abner Allen, is a resident of Pelican Rapids, Minn, where he is engaged in newspaper work. Two children have blessed the home of Charles Ives, Winifred B and Erva C. Mr Ives is a Republican in politics and is always active in the service of his party. He and his accomplished wife are highly esteemed by a large circle of friends, who find their pleasant home a center of refined and gracious hospitality of true Western character.