Early life and education
George Frederick Warren, Jr. was born 16 February 1874 on a small farm in Clay County, Nebraska near the town of Harvard. He was the ninth and last child of George Frederick Warren and Julia Calista Stanley Warren.[1]
Family background
George Warren, Sr. was born in Bethany, New Haven County, Connecticut in 1830. The Warren family was descendant from Richard Warren, one of the original Pilgrims to have arrived on the Mayflower. In 1849 Warren, Sr. left home to join the California Gold Rush where he worked as a carpenter. Back in Connecticut he worked as a farmhand. Julia Calista Stanley was born in New Britain, Hartford County, Connecticut, also in 1830. They were married in 1853, when they were both 23 years old.[2] With family help the couple bought 320 acres in LaSalle County, Illinois in 1854. They had four children, Arthur (1854), William (1856), Georgeie (1858) and Elizabeth May (1860).
George Warren, Sr. enlisted in the Union Army in September 1861, leaving the farm and children to Julia and hired farmhands. He rose to the rank of first lieutenant and in late 1862 through early 1863 was furloughed to Illinois as a recruiter for the Calvary. In October 1863 he became a first lieutenant in the First Mississippi Colored Cavalry. In October and November of 1863 two sons, William and Georgie, died of diphtheria. Lieutenant Warren resigned at Vicksburg to return to the farm. Four more children were born in Illinois: Henry (1862), Alice (1865), Herbert (1868) and Joseph (1870). The oldest child, Arthur, set out on his own at the age of 13 owing to growing disputes with his father. In 1871 the Warrens sold their farm and moved to the Scranton, Pennsylvania area where they ran a butcher shop.
The Homestead Act of 1862 granted a person 160 acres if they made certain improvements and stayed for five years. In early spring of 1872 George Warren, Sr. left the family behind and took the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad to the end of one of its lines at Harvard, Nebraska. Six miles to the northwest of Harvard George established his 160 acre farm and filed his claim with the county courthouse. Julia followed with the five children in the summer.[3] George Warren, Jr., referred to in the family as Fred, was born two years after the family's arrival in Nebraska.
The Warren family was primarily Republican in accordance with their New England roots. Clay County that was mostly Democratic, but supported the Greenback Party in the 1870s, the Farmers' Alliance in the 1880s and the Populist Party in the 1890s. The Depression of the 1890s hurt frontier farmers and George was the only one of the men in his family not to vote for William Jennings Bryan in the presidential election of 1896.[4]
Education
In the fall of 1892 Warren began college at the University of Nebraska, Industrial College in Lincoln, 70 miles down the main line of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad from Harvard. Having attended Harvard High School did not meet the requirements for the University of Nebraska, so Warren had to spend a year at their preparatory college. He worked for his landlady and waited tables to pay his expenses.[5]
Warren graduated in Spring of 1897 and spent the next five years moving around Nebraska in a series of teaching and administrative jobs of growing responsibility and income.
