Extract from the 1880 Census:
Name: Anna J Ward
Age: 6
Estimated birth year: 1874
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relationship to head-of-household: daughter
Home in 1880: Union, Mahaska, Iowa
Marital status: single
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Mother's birthplace: Nova Scotia
Father's occupation: farmer
Occupation: none
Siblings living at home: Maria S (age 8), Charles B (4), Elizabeth L (2), and Thomas S (2/12)
Census place: Union, Mahaska, Iowa; Roll: T9_353; Family History Film: 1254353; Page: 221.4000; Enumeration District: 166; Image: 0447
Date: 3 Jun 1880

Extract from the 1900 Census:
Name: Anna J Fillenwarth
Age at last birthday: 26
Date of birth: 16 Dec 1873
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Home in 1900: Erin, Hancock, Iowa
Relationship to head-of-house: wife
Marital status: married
Number of years of marriage: 3
Number of children: 2
Number of children living: 2
Able to read, write and speak English: yes
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Mother's birthplace: Nova Scotia
Occupation: none
Census place: Erin, Hancock, Iowa; Roll: T623 434; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 122
Date: Jun 1900

Extract from the 1910 Census:
Name: Anna Fillenwarth
Age in 1910: 36
Estimated birth year: 1874
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relationship to head of family: wife
Home in 1910: Erin Township, Hancock, Iowa
Marital status: married
Number of years of present marriage: 12
Number of children: 2
Number of children now living: 2
Able to speak English: yes
Able to read and write: yes
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Mother's birthplace: Nova Scotia (Canada French)
Occupation: none
Census place: Erin, Hancock, Iowa; Roll: T624_393; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 134; Image: 464
Date: 18 Apr 1910

Extract from the 1920 Census:
Name: Anna J Fillenwarth
Age: 43
Estimated birth year: 1877
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relationship to head of family: wife
Home in 1920: Erin, Hancock, Iowa
Address: farm
Marital status: married
Able to speak English: yes
Able to read and write: yes
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Father's native tongue: Scots
Mother's birthplace: Nova Scotia
Mother's native tongue: English
Occupation: none
Census place: Erin, Hancock, Iowa; Roll: T625_492; Page: 13B; Enumeration District: 148; Image: 254
Date: 4 Feb 1920

Extract from the 1925 Iowa State Census:
Name: Anna Fillenwarth
Age: 51
Estimated birth year: 1874
Birth location: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Gender: female
Residence county: Hancock
Residence state: Iowa
Locality: Erin
Relation to head of house: wife
Marital status: married
Highest grade completed: 6
Father: William Ward
Father's age: 75
Father's estimated birth year: 1850
Father's birth location: Scotland
Mother: Florence Boutiler
Mother's age: 76
Mother's estimated birth year: 1849
Mother's birth location: Nova Scotia
Parents' marriage location: Pennsylvania
Religion: Protestant
Census date: 1 Jan 1925
Roll: IA1925_1739
Line: 27

Extract from the 1930 Census:
Name: Anna J Fillenwarth
Age: 56
Estimated birth year: 1874
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relation to head-of-house: wife
Home in 1930: Britt, Hancock, Iowa
Marital status: married
Age at first marriage: 23
Education: able to speak English
Education: able to read and write
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Mother's birthplace: Cape Breton
Occupation: none
Census place: Britt, Hancock, Iowa; Roll: 657; Page: ; Enumeration District: 9; Image: 708.0
Date: 18 Apr 1930

Extract from the 1940 Census:
Name: Annie Fillenwarth
Age: 66
Estimated birth year: 1874
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Race: white
Sex: female
Relation to head-of-house: head
Home in 1940: Britt, Hancock, Iowa
Address: 551 1st Street East
Marital status: widow
Highest grade of school completed: 8
Living on farm: yes
Home owned or rented: owned
Value of home: $2000
Place of residence in 1935: same house
Occupation: unable to work
Has other income of more than $50: yes
Census place: Britt, Hancock, Iowa; Roll: T627_1164; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 41-9
Date: Apr 1940

Extract from the book "Recollections of Britt, Iowa" published 1978 by the Britt Centennial Committee, pp. 52-53:
Maria Susannah and Ann Jane Ward were born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania in 1872 and 1873, respectively. The came with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Ward, to Mahaska County, Iowa, with a number of relatives. The men farmed and worked in the coal mines in the New Sharon and Oksaloosa vicinities. Mr. Ward was a shots firer in the mines.
Mr. and Mrs. James L. Manuel, who had homesteaded west of Garner in 1881, had also come from Shamokin, and wanted some of their kinsmen to come to the new territory. They write that this was a wonderful country with soil so fertile all one had to do was to plant a pig's tail and it would grow. The made Hancock County sound so inviting with their stories that the southern Iowa relatives decided to give Hancock County a try. Farms were rented for each of the families that planned to move from Mahaska County.
On the last day of February 1882, a caravan of five covered wagons set out for Hancock County. Those in the group included George Henry Boutilier, Sr. and his sons Alfred and Henry; the William Ward and Charles Boutilier families; Mrs. Peter Boutilier and children, and Albert Clements. This trip of two hundred miles took eleven days and ten nights over roads which were merely prairie trails. The only heat and light available on this late winter trip came from a lantern hung in the top of each wagon. Their supply of food gave out before their destination was reached, and all they were able to purchase in one town was a ten-cent box of crackers. A lady along the way befriended them and baked them a pan of biscuits, which was their last night's meal on the trail. Peter Boutilier accompanied the freight car, bringing the machinery and furniture for the group. Traveling via passenger train were Mrs. George Boutilier, Sr., Mrs. Albert Clements and children, and Joe Clements.
Mr. and Mrs. Ward and five children made their home for three years on a farm in Avery Township, midway between Garner and Belmond at Upper Grove, a wayside station which consisted of a store and post office in one building. A grist mill, which was operated by water power, was four miles distant, located near where Goodell now stands.
The only buildings on the newly occupied farm were a small shed with a straw roof, and a granary. In the latter building, the family made their home. Like all early settlers, they dug a cave for a shelter against tornadoes, and proceeded to put in their crops. Their only livestock consisted of a cow and two mules.
In the fall, a prairie fire swept across the country, taking practically everything in its path. Mr. and Mrs. Ward were in Garner at the time, and the Ward children, assisted by an aunt and a neighbor boy, pulled buckets of water from the open well and wet the ground around the granary home in an effort to save it. The young willow grove, which had recently been started, was partially burned through, and the fire crossed a corner of the corn field.
A year after the arrival of the Ward family in their new home, diphtheria claimed the first death in the family, that of Thomas Samuel, aged three years. Maria and Annie also suffered from the dread disease. The nearest doctor was in Garner, and there was a doctor in Belmond. Each doctor was about ten miles away.
Early frost ruined the crop the first two years the Ward family lived in Hancock County. Following the crop losses, times were hard. Mr. Ward went to Streator, Illinois, to work in the coal mines during the winter months of 1883. Maria, then twelve years of age, began working as a hired girl in neighboring homes for one dollar per week.
The stage ran between Belmond and Garner, carrying mail twice each week, but the rural families went to Upper Grove for their mail. The only means of transportation was by lumber wagons and mules. There were no telephones. Neighbors lived from one to three miles apart.
The grain was cut with reapers on which two men rode and bound the grain into bundles. All grain in those days was stacked and later threshed with horse-powered machines. The Burlington-Northern Railroad, now the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, was built with horse-powered grading equipment. The Ward children witnessed bot operations.
Indians often came to Upper Grove from Tama, and pestered the settlers for miles around, begging for anything and everything they saw.
There was little variety in foodstuffs. The only fruits on the market were dried apples and prunes. There were no canned goods and no baked goods. Crackers were scarce, and corn meal was the only cereal. The early settlers took their own corn and went to the mail for grinding. Women churned their own butter and were fortunate if they owned a cow. The people went to the timber in the fall, where they gathered sour, wild, crab apples. These were put into the storm cave, where they turned a lighter color. They were then made into sauce for the table by cooking them with molasses.
At the end of three years, in 1885, the family moved to the Dave Gilbert farm just east of Britt, which had just been vacated by the A. W. Dana family. This farm was later known as the Erickson farm, and is now occupied by the Ronald Eisenman family in section 26, Britt Township. The Ward children attended the Dickirson school, later known as the Schaper school, which had been built in 1885 by Chris Peterson and son.
While living there, Mrs. Ward and her two daughters began sewing men's shirts and knitting and crocheting hoods to be sold in the Daylor store in Britt. One winter, they made eighty hoods and an endless number of shirts.
In March 1890, the Ward family moved to the McDonald farm four and one-half miles southwest of Britt in the southeast quarter of section 17, Erin Township. In 1896 the William Wards purchased the Eagle Lake farm, now the James Hampe farm, where they lived until 1912, when they sold out and retired. In 1890, Maria married Henry A. Schaper and moved to the farm now occupied by the Verlin Balls, directly across the road from her girlhood home, east of Britt. Annie Ward married Frank Fillenwarth in 1897, and she, too, went back to the old Erin Township neighborhood to live for twenty-nine years.

Obituary from the "News-Tribune" of Britt, Iowa dated Mar 1959:
Mrs. Frank Fillingwarth, a resident of Hancock County for 77 years, died at the Hancock County Memorial Hospital in Britt Monday, March 2, at 1:40 p.m., having suffered from infirmities of age for the past few years. She had attained the age of 85 years, 2 months, and 16 days, and had been hospitalized two weeks. Funeral services will be held Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene where deceased had been a member. A prayer service at the Boughton Funeral Home will precede the church service. Burial will be made in the family lot in Evergreen Cemetery at Britt. The Rev. Stewart Able will have charge of the rites.
Ann Jane Ward was born the second child to William and Florence Boutilier Ward at Shamokin, Pa. Dec. 16, 1873. Two years later the family left Pennsylvania for Malcom, Iowa, and from then on farmed. On the last day of February, 1882, the Ward family and a number of the Boutilier clan left Mahaska County in several covered wagons for homes in Hancock County. Some of the relatives had already settled here. After eleven days on the trail, Mr. and Mrs. Ward and five children settled on a farm in Avery Township, midway between Garner and Belmond, to meet the hardships of the early days. The family farmed during the summer and due to crop failures, the father worked in Illinois coal mines during the winters. After three years the Ward family moved to a farm east of Britt known today as the Erickson property. In 1890 the family moved south of Britt in Erin Township. There Ann Jane Ward met Frank Fillingwarth whom she married on March 10, 1897. The couple farmed his adjoining farm until 1926 when they retired to the present home on East Commercial Street in Britt. Mr. Fillingwarth died January 14, 1940.
Mrs. Fillingwarth had many hobbies, among them are gardening, flowers, knitting, quilt making, sewing, and other hand work.
Surviving are two children, Vincent on the home farm and Margaret in Britt; three sisters and two brothers: Mrs. H. A. Schaper and William Ward, Britt; Mrs. Herb Redmond, Choteau, Mont.; Mrs. D. A. Schulz, Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Henry Ward, Klemme. Preceding her in death were three brothers; Samuel, Charles and James, the latter having given his life in World War 1.
[Source: Louis Schleuger 48469498]

Children:
(1) Vincent Howard Fillenwarth
(2) Margaret Mary Fillenwarth.