Above:  Photo of Ella in her teens.
(photo courtesy Nancy V.B. Brigham)

          One of his daughters, Ella, after having a serious but short-lived  romantic relationship with Ransom E. Olds of Lansing (who at that time had not yet started experimenting with his steam and electric powered carriages), eventually met and chose to settle down with the more sedate William Frederick Van Bergen.  It is not known how they met but the two were married on February 9, 1875 in Lansing.  W. F. Van Bergen brought his new wife to live with him in Oak Park.

Ella and William F. Van Bergen in 1879
photos courtesy of The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest

          In the late 1870's, Frank, Martin and Harry Wood (Ella's brothers) moved to Oak Park.  In 1885 they brought their sisters, Jessie and Kate and their now elderly father from Lansing to Oak Park to live near them.  Now retired from his medical practice, but apparently needing to still keep busy, John Shoudy Wood took up an interest in electricity and X-rays, which he wrote about for scientific journals.
The Wood brothers set up shop selling real estate and building houses in the newer subdivisions of Oak Park and neighboring Maywood.  Here the Wood brothers came to know Frank. E. and C. K. Ballard, also real estate developers in Chicago's western suburbs.  (Their father, Edward Ballard was one of the first settlers of Chicago and a prominent builder before the Chicago fire.)   The sisters, Jessie and Kate Wood, soon  met and married the Ballard brothers.

John Van Bergen's uncles.
Top: Left:  Frank Ballard
Top Right:  Frank Wood

(photos from Oak Leaves,
courtesy of The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest)