The Landises

Scott’s paternal grandmother Ruby Frye Carpenter (b. 1864) descends from Hans Landis, an Anabaptist martyr (d. 1614) and patriarch of a prolific Swiss-German clan that migrated to Pennsylvania in the 18th century. Scott’s Landis (and Frye) forebears migrated west into Illinois and Iowa. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge and the first baseball commissioner, was Ruby’s first cousin.

Ruby’s grandfather William Ruby settled Madison County, Iowa, in the 1850s and cultivated the region’s first apple orchards near Winterset. Family members migrated to Great Bend, Kansas, and northern Colorado, where they were Routt County homesteaders and educators in Denver. Traces of Mennonite pacifism are evident in Ruby Carpenter’s ultra-conservative World War II correspondence with her son (Scott Sr.) as her grandson Scott prepared to join the U.S. armed forces.