William Ward was 12 when his parents moved to Willard, Utah.  He attended school during the winter months and aided his father in farming and stock raising.  He was the oldest of eight children.  He learned to shoulder responsibility early in life.  His father was a good manager and always kept his boys busy.  When William was just 18 his mother, Ann Trulock, died in 1860.  He married Bishop Alfred Cordon’s daughter, Rachel Ann Cordon (1844-1911), July 24, 1861.  They were married by Bishop Cordon.  William and Rachel had nine children.  Their oldest, George Alfred Ward, (1862-1898), is our direct ancestor.  William and Rachel raised their family in Willard, Utah except for about 3 years they lived in Bloomington, Idaho.  William was called on a mission to Malad, Idaho, March 10, 1876.  In his labors with the Indians at Washakie, he not only taught them the Gospel, but plowed the land and sowed some of the first wheat raised there.  He was untiring in his labors and worked in all kinds of weather.  He caught cold and had pneumonia in the spring of 1876.  He was very ill and when he was able to be moved they brought him home to his wife in Willard.  He died on September 16, 1876, when he was 34 years old leaving Rachel with eight children and pregnant with their ninth.