Christian D. Ladner. In electing Christian D. Ladner their sheriff in 1916 the citizens of Pottawatomie County exereised a wise discretion in the choice of one of the most important county officials. Mr. Ladner is a native of Pottawatomie County, and had played a varied and successful part in the affairs of this community for over thirty years.
He is of fine old Swiss stock. His father, George Ladner, was born December 25, 1823, in the largest Canton or Province of Switzerland, Gran Buenden. He grew up in his native country and married there Barbara Neff, who was born in Switzerland in 1833. Her father, Christian Neff, was born in 1801 and in his late years came to America and died in Jackson County, Kansas, in 1883. He followed the business of trader both in the old country and in Kansas. George Ladner learned the trade of shoemaker in the old country, and in 1850 he came to the United States with his wife, first locating at St. Louis. He lived there six years, and for another six years had his home near St. Louis but at Carondelet, Illinois. He was a general workman in St. Louis, and in 1862 he joined the early settlers of Pottawatomle County, where he bought a farm of 120 acres in Lone Tree Township. He homesteaded the forty acres comprising the remainder of the quarter section and gave his energies successfully to the development and cultivation of the land until he retired into Onaga in 1890. He lived there until his death in 1896. His wife died at Onaga in 1903. George Ladner was a republican in nolfties. He was a man of excellent character, industrions and law abiding, and a large family of children paid him the homage of their veneration and esteem. These children numbered thirteen; Annie, who died at Enid, Oklahoma, married Herman Bronsow, now living on a farm in Minnesota; Maggie is the wife of Peter Gurtler, a hardware merchant at Chaga; Martin died at the age of nineteen years; Ellzabeth, who died at Wichita Falls, Texas, was the wife of John Harper, who is still living at Wichita Falls, a railroad engineer; Amanda, who died at Oklahoma City, was the wife of Ernest Grutzmecher, a farmer at Onaga; Catherine married James Lempanau, a retired farmer at Westmoreland; the seventh in age is Christian D.; George is a farmer in Lone Tree Township of Pottawatomie County; John is a plumber living at De Witt, Nebraska; Rosa married David Ackright, a farmer at Utop a in Greenwood County, Kansas; Andy is employed in the Santa Fe Railway shops at Topeka; Mary married Peter Wetrick, a farmer east of Onaga; Jacob, the thirteenth and youngest child, died in infancy.
Sheriff Ladner was born in Pottawatomie County, on his father’s farm, October 23, 1866. He lived there until be was twenty years of age, and in the meantime secured a sound training in the public schools. On leaving home he spent eighteen months in Idaho, where he worked at farming and also driving logs on the Payette River. Mr. Ladner then returned to Pottawatomie County and farmed for himself, and a year later bought eighty acres in Lone Tree Township. This land he still owned, and under his capable management his holdings have increased until he now had 495 acres of the rich and fertile soil of this section.
Mr. Ladner gave practically all his time to farming until he was elected sheriff in November, 1916, and entered upon the duties of that office for a term of two years in 1917. He had also served as township clerk and road oversser for many years in Lone Tree Township. Politically he is a republican and was elected on that ticket.
On November 11, 1889, at Westmoreland, he married Miss Flora J. Hazlett, who was born in Pennsylvania September 4, 1870, a daughter of John and Bridget (McGee) Hazlett, both now deceased. Her father was a carpenter by trade. Mr. and Mrs. Ladner have every reason to be proud of their numerous family of children, for whom they have worked and created their prosperity, and they have done all they could to educate them for useful eareers. Some of the older children are already established in homes of their own. Taken in order of birth the record reads as follows: Charles, born April 16, 1890, is a farmer living four miles north of Blaine in Pottawatomie County; Flora, born July 28, 1891, is the wife of Jerry Becker, a farmer in Nemaha County. Maggie, born February 8, 1893, married Ambrose Becker, also a Nemaha County farmer. Barbara, born December 13, 1894, is the wife of George Jenrett, a farmer in Pottawatomie County. May, born July 13, 1896, and living at home with her parents, is the widow of Marshall Mcnths, a farmer who died in 1916. Christian, born November 27, 1897, is now handling the responsibilities of his father’s farm. Ernest, born July 27, 1899, is employed on a farm in Marshall County. Martin, born April 21, 1901, also lives at home and takes part in the farm enterprises. The younger children, still at home, are George, born February 26, 1903; Aaron, born August 22, 1904; Rachel, born March 9, 1906; Marie, born February 3, 1908; Myrtle, born October 8, 1909; and Belle, born August 2, 1912.