Ada Ruth Weaver
Living Sussex Sun, Posted: March 2, 2010 12:52 p.m.
Ada Ruth Weaver was the second and final daughter of a Lisbon Civil War veteran named Alfred S. Weaver and his wife, Sarah Ann Archer Howard.
Alfred was born on July 24, 1839, one of 16 children to early settlers James and Elizabeth Weaver. He would serve in the Trans Mississippi Union Army that would take Vicksburg, Mobile Bay and then Garrison, Texas, for four months after the Civil War.
He had promoted to the rank of sergeant and was the color bearer of the Company B 28th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Only a year after he returned to Lisbon, he married a much younger Lisbon farm girl named Sarah Ann Archer Howard. Howard was born on May 25, 1847, to original Lisbon settlers, Charles and Harriet Howard. She was the fourth of 10 children.
Alfred at age 27 and Sarah Ann at age 19 were the very first couple married in the then-new St. Alban’s stone church with their wedding on Dec. 19, 1866.
Alfred would take over a farm that was directly across Waukesha Avenue from Rose Hill Cemetery. His 80 acres is today the northern reaches of Halquist Quarry, H&H Auto Parts and Schmidt Trucking; Michelle Lane is the roadway to this former Civil War Vet’s land holding.
There would be a first-born Harriet Elizabeth Weaver, but she would always be called, “Allie.”
Now the second born came four and a half years later on Jan. 25, 1873, and this was Ada Ruth Weaver. She was only 10-plus years old when in October of 1884 she received a gift from a distant cousin, Aggie Gibson. It was a maroon colored scrap book with a dozen large high sulfur content pages.
Ada Weaver attended Lisbon Plank School where the Halquist Quarry is on Highway K (Lisbon Road) and collected trade cards and portraits.
She pasted them in the scrapbook for about 22 years until 1906 when the last entry was made and the book was full.
I acquired the scrapbook in 2001 while being allowed by the developer to go through the debris of Ada’s home where she lived with her husband, Charles Tempero, from 1905 until her death in 1943. Today, this home is part of the Sussex Corporate Center industrial park.
In 2009, I took up the preservation of the scrapbook and because it was on high acid sulfur paper, it was disintegrating. So I had to separate the scrapbook pieces and remount them on acid-free paper and label them.
The trade cards found in the book were probably issued around 1890 by Greenwood Bros. Staple and Fancy Groceries of Milwaukee. Underwriting the issue of these trade cards was Lantz Bros. Pure and Healthy Soaps. The four cards told a story of two children, a brother and sister. The younger sibling, Willie, accidently falls down a well, however, fortunately for him, he was holding on to a bar of Acme Soap and a froth of soap bubbles safely returned him to his sister. See photos with this story.