Home of Claudius Ward (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the home once stood. No visible remains exist.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2008 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:

Claudius “Uncle Bud” Hartfield Ward
June 7, 1901 - March 26, 1956

Claud Ward, a well known radio personality, singer, and advertising man, died of cancer at age 55 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He and his wife, Pauline, and daughter, Amelita, made their home on Valley View Drive (at the top of the second big hill), in Franconia for many years until his death.

He became “Uncle Bud” when he began broadcasting a national children’s program from Washington, D. C. and the name stuck, so that thousands of persons knew him by no other.

His career as a singer and entertainer began in his native North Carolina when he was only 14 years of age. Possessed of a fine voice, he was employed by the North Carolina State Board of Evangelism, and traveled with its evangelists throughout the country. He and Pauline Pownell, his future wife, studied music at Shenandoah College, in Dayton, Virginia. He was also a voice student at Carnegie Hall in New York City. They were married in 1923, and formed a team. She played the piano and sang, and he sang and did the commentary. The team was intact until his last illness. For a number of years, they traveled throughout the country, singing at revival services with such great evangelists as Billy Sunday, Gipsy Smith, Sr., and Gipsy Smith, Jr. At tent meetings, he sang and Pauline accompanied him on the piano.

In 1933 they began their broadcasts from Washington, D. C. over the Blue and Red networks, operated by the National Broadcasting System (WMAL). Their featured program was the National Children’s Frolic, in which area children performed on an amateur basis. The Franconia School choir performed on the show. Other Franconians who performed included singers Elizabeth Dennis (Fenimore), whose home was across from the Wards; Cora Chitty (King) who was a high school choir member in Washington, D. C.; and Betty Plaugher (Nalls) who played the piano. Cora remembers that the studio was located at 14th & H Street, NW in Washington. Each year they broadcast a special program featuring the children of members of Congress, under the sponsorship of Congressional Women’s Club. Uncle Bud performing on his slide whistle was one of the show’s highlights. The Wards operated an advertising agency in Alexandria. Uncle Bud was associated with the Alexandria radio station WPIK for his last few years. His last broadcast for the station was his taped coverage of the George Washington Birthday Parade in Alexandria.

Pauline Pownell, born in Keyser, West Virginia, was a concert pianist. Franconia children who sang on the amateur show would go her home to practice. The huge living room featured a large grand piano and a huge stone fireplace. The outside structure of their home was also stone. The five (maybe ten) acre tract of land featured a lake which was a big attraction to neighborhood children. The house no longer stands, and the property has been developed.

Pauline was a beautiful brunette, and she wore her hair long in a bun at the nape of her neck. Their only child, Amelita Galli-Curci Pownell Ward (named for an opera soprano,) was also a beautiful brunette, and had a lovely singing voice. After high school graduation at Mount Vernon, she was spotted by a modeling agency. Soon after, she married a photographer at the agency and moved to Hollywood, where she appeared in movies beginning around 1942. The movies are sometimes aired on the classic movie cable stations. She is billed as Amelita or Lita Ward and was an actress in “Clancy Street Boys” (1943) and “Smuggler’s Cove” (1948) with Leo Gorcey, one of the original Dead End Kids. Leo’s on-screen character usually called “Mugs” or “Slip” was famous for his ability to massacre the English language.

Leo and Amelita married and had two children; a son, Leo, Jr. in 1949 and a daughter, Jan in 1951. The marriage ended in divorce in 1956. Leo visited the Franconia home several times and he attended Uncle Bud’s funeral. After her father’s death, Amelita moved back to the Alexandria area near her mother. They are both deceased. Leo Gorcey, Jr., who also has a web Link, wrote a biography about his father entitled “Muggsy: The Dead End Kid.” His newest book is “Me and The Dead End Kid.”

Uncle Bud’s funeral services were described as “unique and different.” Always a natural showman, he wanted his death to be dramatic enough to impress on folks the importance and meaning of the hymns used during the service. He sang at his own funeral. He had recorded three hymns on his death bed in the hospital. (Jesus Took My Burden and Left Me With a Song; The Touch of His Hand on Mine; Tell it to Jesus Alone.) Members of the Alexandria Rotary Club, in which he was a member, served as pallbearers. He is interred in the Pownell family cemetery in Keyser, West Virginia.

Uncle Bud was described to be a little man with a big heart. He was remembered by his many friends as the familiar figure with a battered hat, the gaily colored tie and the inevitable cigar. Most of all, he is missed as a quiet thoughtful man underneath—a man whose sense of fairness that never dimmed and whose personal integrity was never compromised.

Uncle Bud was civic minded. He can be seen in many Franconia Museum photos crowning the Queen of the Franconia Volunteer Fire Department’s annual Labor Day parade, officiating in the installation of officers and other Master of Ceremony events. He was the voice and public face of Franconia for many years.

Parts of this document were abstracted from the Evening Star and Alexandria Gazette clippings.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Find A Grave website for Claudius Ward that features an intriguing newspaper clipping:

Radio Artist Works His Own Farm
Information grows in the strangest places in Washington. The other day I learned a lot about moles and how to feed yourself from your own farm from Bud Ward. Of course, the information did not cover sugar and coffee growing, nor, in this case, meat, though Bud tells me he will have plenty of pork by spring besides what he is going to sell.

I forgot to say who Bud is. Well, I will tell you later. He has a farm over in Virginia. It's the kind of a place that people stop to look at when they are out driving.

Bud does all the work with the help of Mrs. Ward and the baby, Amelita.

She is not a baby any more, the way I first knew her. Now she is a young lady and pretty enough to make any star of stage or screen or radio envious.

Bud says the family had a surplus of fruit and vegetable and chicken to put up over 500 cans -- that is glass jars -- of food last year.

"Sometime," Bud told me the other day, "we put up 25 or 30 cans in the evening, after we get home from the studio."

And that reminds me. I was going to tell you who Bud is. Well, he and Mrs. Ward and Amelita run one of the most popular weekly programs in Washington. In fact they have two, and one annual, international blue network show, "Congressional Children."

The "National Children's" program is weekly and it consists of children -- and I mean children -- little tots some of them who can hardly talk.

All three of the Wards have their part in running these programs.

Oh, the moles! Well, I have to let that go until next time.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2019 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:

Memories of Living in Franconia by Lena Mapes

Lena Mapes and her parents and siblings lived in Franconia for many years. They lived in what was the original Franconia School, after it had been remodeled into a home. Lena shared one of her favorite childhood memories with a member of the Franconia Museum Board of Directors, and has given her permission for the Museum to share this delightful memory.

Lena Mapes: When we lived in Franconia, we would sometimes sneak over to 'Ward's Pond.' I went by myself one sunny afternoon and spread my towel out, and took off my new watch and headed to wade in the water. I looked around to make sure no-one was around, and lo and behold there was a man coming out of the woods! It scared me and I took off running.

Well, I forgot my watch, and after agonizing over my loss, I found my courage to go the house and confess my trespassing sin and ask if they had found it. They said no, they hadn't found it. I left my phone number, and about three days later I received a phone call asking me to come back to the house. I told my parents and they said I could go, and off I went.

When I got there, they told me that my watch had not been found, but they asked me if I would like a watch they had and were no longer using. I jumped at that and gave an ecstatic YES! They gave me the watch, and I gave them my word I would not trespass on their property again. The watch they gave me was a "Waltham."

I later found out from my brother, Bill, that the man who gave me the watch was Leo Gorcey, an actor from the "Dead End Kids." I couldn't believe it. This is a story I have cherished for years, but had no one to share it with.

MUSEUM NOTE: “Uncle” Bud Ward lived on Valley View Drive. He was a local radio personality for station WPIK in Alexandria back when radio was king of the airwaves. He was also the announcer for Franconia VFD events and parades. His daughter, Amelita Ward, a Mount Vernon HS graduate, became an actress and played supporting roles in over 20 films from 1943-49 (sometimes credited as Lita Ward.) In 1949, she married actor Leo Gorcey (Dead End Kids, East End Kids, Bowery Boys, over 90 movies). They had two children, and later divorced in 1956. Leo Gorcey died in 1969, and Amelita Ward McSloy died in 1987. She is buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria, VA.