Dan Willard Family

Woman may be wife of his son Carl and granddaughter Rosetta Marie.

WILLARD FAMILY PHOTO

The man on the far right with glasses was Daniel Verne Willard (called Dan by most). May have been taken in Sublette, Kansas or Barry Co., Missouri.

Willard Sisters

Not a direct line but the family of my step-grandfather, Daniel Verne Willard. He was the only grandfather I ever knew. When he died, his son Carl loaded up all the household goods (including, it was said, some of my grandmother's family heirlooms) and headed back to Alabama. A friend from church had gone in and packed up a box of some of grandmother's personal items (her dresses, aprons, part of her salt and pepper shaker collection, costume jewelry, letters, photos and an old leather wallet or document binder with clippings). When the box arrived, inside the leather document binder were also, unknown til later were a collection of photos of her husband's family. Over the years, I made several unsuccessful attempts via family history bulletin boards to connect with his relatives and send the photos to them. Recently, in I began scanning some of the ones with identifiers on the back and loading them onto Ancestry. These are the daughters of Samuel O. Willard and his wife Minnie M. Crandall Willard.

BROWN-WILLARD

This was the only grandparents I ever knew. Annie B. Brown King Cochren Willard. The man was Dan Willard. They met in about 1933 when grandma and her son George Valjean Cochren moved to Barry County, Mo (where a daughter was living). Annie found work as a housekeeper with a local widower, Dan Willard. They married in about 1935 in Cassville, Mo. Later they moved to Bushnell, Nebraska. Dan worked on the railroads there. Dan was a sweet and gentle man who loved to play checkers and I remember many a game with him as a small child on his visits to his son in Alabama or Georgia, Carl Willard. He always stopped by to visit on those trips and always brought the checkerboard.