Ira Charles Waste was born on January 25, 1795, at Somerset, Windham County, Vermont. But he spent much of his early childhood in Hague, New York, on the shores of Lake George. 

"Ira served through the War of 1812-1814, and in the Mexican War," Thomas Waste said of his father in 1899 in Iowa.

In 1812 he was 17 and fought in several battles in upstate New York, including the decisive Battle of Lake Champlain. He returned to his home nearby after the War.

At the age of 21, he married his first wife, JANE M. HOGLE, on January 1, 1816. She was born in New York State and died there on November 9, 1835. From 1822 to 1835 they lived in both Utica and Hague, N.Y. His wife's death left him a widower with 4 young sons. He had to be both a father and mother to them until he could find the right woman to be his wife and to raise his boys.

Besides school work and farm chores, his sons Ira Jr., aged 17, and Bezaleel, aged 13, had to help him with the care and feeding of brother Francis, who was 8, and baby John Jackson Waste, who was only 8 months old. Then, into this broken home, came NANCY ANN DONAHUE.

He married his second wife on May 26, 1836, six month after his first wife died. And by 1840, they were in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio. They were living in Millville, Grant County, Wisconsin in 1859, when he wrote a letter to his 24-year-old son John Jackson Waste and his wife living in Princeton, California. This letter was dated September 20, 1859, when he was 64.

"Dear Children: It is with pleasure that I take my pen in hand to let you know that we are all well . . . We want to see you & and Margaret very much, but we never can unless you come home & see us, for we are getting to be old . . .If you can sell out there, come home to stay . . . Our prayer to God is that we may have the happiness of seeing you before we leave this world. We remain, your affectionate father and mother until death."

Profound sorrow, as well as loneliness, seeped from between the lines of Ira Charles' next letter to his son in California. It was written in ink by a shaky hand on July 3, 1860:

"Dear Children: It is with an aching heart that I sit down to inform you of your step-mother's death. She (Nancy) died the first day of May, last. And I was taken sick the same night & for about 6 weeks the doctor did not know how it would go with me. But thru the goodness of God, I am able to write you once more & I hope these few lines may find you enjoying good health & the blessing of God . . . James says that he will come and live with you if you will send him money to come with . . . I never expect to see you here again. No more at present, only I remain, your affectionate father till death. Ira C. Waste."

After his wife died, he traveled and visited some of his 6 children. He died at the home of his son Bezaleel in Hartsgrove, Ashtabula County, Ohio, on November 6, 1873. He was then 78 years old.

NANCY ANN DONAHUE was born in County Sligo, Ireland, and she came to America in 1824 with a half-brother. She died on May 1, 1860 in Millville, Wisconsin. She was a hard-working, loveable, happy-hearted Irish lass. With loving kindness, she raised Jane Hogle's sons and gave birth to 3 sons of her own. And she taught them well. She proved to be a truly wonderful mother.

Utica, Oneida County, New York (pop. 101,600) lies 238 miles northwest of New York City, near the center of the State, at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains. This milltown is located where the Mohawk River and the N.Y. Barge Canal meet. It stands at 415 feet elevation. Among the products it manufactures are heating equipment and textiles. Incorporated as a hamlet in 1798, it was chartered in 1832. It was named after the Biblical city in Africa.

Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio (pop. 58,000), "the steel center", lies 50 miles southeast of Cleveland and 13 miles north of Youngstown, near Lake Erie and the Pennsylvania border. Nearby are the small towns of Mayfield, Willoughby and Hartsgrove where other Wastes lived. It has coal and iron mines, linen mills, farming and dairies.

Warren manufactures lamps, steel products, bottles, rubber, and lumber. The town, standing at 900 feet in elevation, was first settled in 1798 when Pennsylvania pioneers built grist-mills and sawmills on the banks of the Mahoning River. But it wasn't incorporated until 1834. It honors Moses Warren, a local surveyor from Connecticut, and is the birthplace of the famed automobile tycoon, John Packard.