Saturday, October 4, 2008

Salem Cemetery Lot No. 47: Ekin Lovell, Owner


Ezra Lovell, 15, who was the youngest of seven children of Ekin and Elizabeth Lovell, appears to be the only person buried on Lot No. 47. His family was among a small group of Benton Township residents who formed a short-lived congregation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) in the southwest part of the township during the 1870s and early 1880s. Soon after Ezra's death, the Lovells moved on to Decatur County where they settled near Lamoni --- the gathering place and at that time headquarters of the RLDS (and still home to its Graceland University). The inscription on Ezra's stone, somewhat obscured by lichen and erosion, reads as follows:
EZRA
Son of
E. & E. LOVELL

DIED
May 19, 1882
Aged 15ys. 4ms.

Ekin and Elizabeth Lovell were English, recorded in the 1851 census of England as residents of Thorpe End, Raunds, Northamptonshire. In that year, Ekin, a shoemaker, was 30; Elizabeth, 28; and their eldest children, Alfred and Charles, ages 6 and 3 respectively.

According to Elizabeth's obituary, published in The Leon Reporter of 29 December 1904, they had married in 1843 and came to the United States in 1855, living a year at Philadelphia before relocating to Dodgeville in Des Moines County, Iowa. It seems likely that the Lovells had been converted in England by RLDS missionaries.

When the 1856 Iowa census was taken, the four-member Lovell family was living in Des Moines County with the John Hixson family. According to that census, the Lovells had lived in Iowa a year or less.

Four years later, when the 1860 census of Dodgeville, Des Moines County, was taken on 10 July, Ekin still was working as a shoemaker and owned only personal property valued at $75. Two sons had been added to the family, Nephi, age 2, and Ransberry, age 8 months.

The family prospered modestly during the next 10 years and when the 1870 census of Dodgeville was taken, Ekin's occupation was given as farmer and the family owned real estate valued at $1,100 and personal property valued at $400. John, age 9; Emma, age 5; and Ezra, age 3, had joined the family. Alfred and Charles no longer were living at home.

According to Elizabeth's obituary, the family lived in Des Moines County for 15 years, which would date the move to Benton Township, Lucas County, at ca. 1871. They seem to have lived in far southwest Benton Township, not far from the Palmer School, located on the Lucas-Wayne county line, since the RLDS congregation the family helped to organize in 1877 met at the school, alternating Sundays with a long-vanished Seventh-day Adventist congregation.

When the 1880 census was taken, four of the Lovell children --- Nephi, John, Emma and Ezra --- still were living at home. Next door was the family of Alfred and Sarah Ann Lovell and their four children, Willard, Elva, Ida and Laura. Samuel Longbottom, 52, an RLDS missionary elder and also a native of England, was boarding with the Ekin Lovell family, presumably serving the congregation. His occupation was given as "preaching."

Lucas County's 1881 history contains the following reference to Ekin Lovell and the RLDS congregation (Page 575): "The Reorganized Latter Day Saints organized a society in 1877, which now numbers about 30 persons. Their meetings are held in the Palmer School house, and their present pastor is Elder Ekin Lovell."

Not long after Ezra's death during 1882, the Lovell family moved to the vicinity of Lamoni in Decatur County, organized by and as a headquarters for the strengthening RLDS church. It seems likely that the Benton Township RLDS congregation was disbanded when they moved.

The Benton Township church may well have been Lucas County's first RLDS congregation. Graceland Church, in northwest Lucas County, no longer extant, was organized about 1900 and the Chariton Community of Christ church, which continues in the Lamoni Stake, in 1914.

Ekin Lovell died in Decatur County on 29 June 1895, age 75; and Elizabeth, on 14 December 1904, age 82, at the home of her son, Nephi, in New Buda Township, Decatur County. They are buried in Lamoni's Rose Hill Cemetery.
OBITUARY: ELIZABETH LOVELL
The Leon Reporter, 29 December 1904

At the home of her son, Nephi, in New Buda Township, on December 14, 1904, Mrs. Elizabeth Lovell, died at the age of eighty-two years, nine months and nine days. For eleven years she had suffered from paralysis and for several years had been entirely helpless, but her mind was as alert and her memory as good as ever. She was a great sufferer and none can regret her release therefrom.

Her husband died June 29, 1895. They were married in England in 1843 and came to America in 1855 dwelling in Philadelphia one year, and after that for fifteen years they lived north of Burlington, Iowa. In 1871 they moved to the neighborhood of Chariton and lived eleven years, then to Decatur County in 1882, where yet three sons have their homes, Alfred, Nephi and John, while two sons live elsewhere, Charles in Nebraska and Ransberry in northwestern Canada. The residence of the only daughter is unknown to the family. Of forty grandchildren, there are twenty-nine living, also four great-grandchildren.

Funeral services were held in the brick church in Lamoni and she was laid by the side of her husband in Rosehill Cemetery. Sermon by Elder H.A. Stebbins, Elijah Sparks assisting. (Lamoni Chronicle).

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