Nolan Zera Ward

Nolan Zera Ward was born November 25, 1897 near Almartha, Ozark County, Missouri. He was the son of George Grant and Susan Ellen (Parnell) Ward. His father died in 1901, and his mother remarried in 1904 to Samuel Wagner. In 1908 the Wagners homesteaded in Sioux County, Nebraska where Nolan attended school. When he finished his schooling, he did farm work, served in World War I, and worked in the oil fields. Then he studied for the ministry and was a minister in Oklahoma and Texas for a few years before giving that up. For the next 40 years, he was employed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He was a field employee who located and collected fossils, many of which are exhibited at the museum. He spent his winters in Texas, coming north in the summers. He also gave lectures on geology at schools, collected rocks, was an accomplished fiddler, and had two books of Poetry published. Upon retirement, he lived in Douglas, Wyoming for several years. Then he moved to Redlands, San Bernardino County, California where he died on July 16, 1982. He was cremated and his ashes were buried at the foot of his mother's grave in the Lusk Cemetery.

Nolan had a brother, Zeb Washington Ward, a sister, Maude Cloe (Ward) Quinn and two half-sisters, Christeen (Wagner) Kobbe and Anna Marie (Wagner) Williamson.

written by his niece, May Ellen (Ward) Smith

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