This is specific to those of you that are related to me via the Love family. David Love is my 2nd great grandfather. That makes David Love the 5th great-grandfather to our newest family additions!
David dictated his story to his daughter and the local newspaper published it when he passed away in 1919. The article appeared in the Washington Evening Journal on March 31, 1919 with the Obituary of David Love who died on March 29, 1919. Along with the obituary and funeral notice, the Journal published David’s autobiography. This is my lineage to David Love starting with Willard Dean Love:
Willard Dean Love (1929-2013) son of James Granville Love (1896-1972) son of James Guthrie Love
(1863-1954) son of David Love (1827-1919)
Although the article doesn’t mention it, David Love’s father was Charles Love who was born in Ireland and first settled in Pennsylvania before moving to Washington County, Iowa to follow his children. David, his wife Mary Guthrie and his parents Charles and Nancy Rodgers Love are all buried at the Ainsworth Cemetery in Ainsworth, Washington County, Iowa.
FUNERAL OF DAVID LOVE IS HELD TODAY
ONE OF COUNTY’S OLDEST AND BEST BELOVED MEN DIES SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Funeral services were held this afternoon at two o’clock for David Love at the home of his son,
J.G. Love, a mile and a half south of Ainsworth, conducted by his pastor the Rev. W.G. Robb of the
local Covenanter church. Burial was in the Ainsworth cemetery.
Mr. Love died Saturday afternoon at the C. E. Deuel home on South Marion avenue, where he
had lived for the last seven years. He was 91 years of age and one of the oldest men in the county.
He was a man of venerable appearance but active up until a few weeks ago, when he began to
decline, suffering no pain, the natural infirmities of old age taking him away.
He was a lovable man of unimpeachable character, devoted to his church the Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter, being a charter member and one of the local congregation of that denomination. His life has been a blessing to many and his example has been always for good. He was strict in his own manner of living and steadfast in his adherence to what he believed was right but was tolerant of the opinions of others, and his every influence was for good. Mr. Love was born at Greenville, Mercer county Pa. December 1, 1827 and was married to Mary Guthrie October 12, 1854 coming to Iowa in May, 1863. He was a veteran of the civil war, entering the service of his country October 4, 1864, in the Ninth Iowa infantry. There survive four children, Mrs. John Cannon of Crawfordsville, Mrs. Will Cannon of Wyman,
Mrs. Robert Orr of Greeley, Colo., and J G Love of Ainsworth and the following brothers and sisters. Samuel Love of the Haskins community. Mrs. E.J. Pattison of Newcastle, Pa., Mrs. Margaret S. Warnock of Washington, Robert Love of Marshalltown, and Charles C. Love of Spearhead, S.D.
Writes Sketch of Life
The Journal is allowed to publish an account of his life, dealing largely with his young manhood
in Pennsylvania and the early days in Iowa, written a few months ago by Mr. Love, when he was
nearly 91 year of age at the request of one of his daughters. It is valuable, not only because it
describes the life of an unusually splendid and vigorous man, but modestly by one who lived it, but,
because it gives an insight into conditions of life when Mr. Love was young. The account follows:
“I was born at Greenville, Mercer county, Pa., on December 1, 1827. Spent my boyhood days
there until the fall of 1837 when my father sold out in Greenville and moved to Slippery Rock, then
into Butler County where he purchased a small farm and boarded the men who built the first church at
Slippery Rock, now the Rose Point, Lawrence county. In the year 1842 I united with the Reformed
Presbyterian church at a communion held in Newcastle by our pastor, Rev James Blackwood,
assisted by Rev Thomas Sproule of Alleghany, Pa. The elders who examined me were Thomas
Spear, Thomas Wilson, Matthew Steward, John Love and David Pattison.
About the year 1815 [1850] my father heard reports of cheap land in Jefferson county, Pa. that
he wanted to see. We hitched up a one horse buggy that he had and he and I started for Brookville,
Jefferson county. We crossed the Allegheny river, near North Washington at a ferry. We met some
old friends at Brookville and spend one or two days with them when we went on to Warsaw, a mission
station, east of Brookville. The congregation was not then organised. After looking over the land
father did not like it and did not buy. Coming back to Brookville a boss carpenter offered me $12 a
month to stay and learn the trade with him, and as I worked some at the trade. I took him up and
stayed. Am not sure now, but think I was there about a year and six months.
After coming home I worked whenever I could get a job and helped to build the church in Mercer, now occupied by the Covenants. The church was built by the Congregationalists, principally by a lawyer named Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson had a brother who was a carpenter who owned a farm between Greenville and Jamestown. We got the church up and enclosed before cold weather came, when the boss had to go home to look after his stock and left me to work alone all winter. That was the best winter job I had. Boarded at a hotel and earned 75 cents a day clear. I first saw my wife at a communion held in the Little Beaver church. In one year we were married and commenced housekeeping across Slippery Rock, where I bought three acres of land with a small house on it. It was very seldom that I could get work near enough to be home at night, and as my wife did not like to stay alone, I sold out and went to Portland-Center to farm the place where my wife was raised. I tried farming on the shares for four years, and while I made a living I found my bank account growing very slow so in the spring of 1860 my friends George Smith and I took the cars for Iowa.
Moves to Washington County
At that time the Rock Island railway stopped at Washington. The Rock Island runs over a rough country from the Mississippi River to Ainsworth And when we got off the cars at Ainsworth and went out to Uncle Joe Porter’s who lived there in the [bush] we thought we had seen enough of Iowa, so next morning we started to walk to Mt. Pleasant to get a train for Kansas. After getting on the prairie north of Crawfordsville we began to change our opinion about the country. Then we met Finley and Davis McCall, old friends of Mr. Smith’s who told us that they had been all over Kansas and Iowa and that we would find no better place than Washington county so we concluded to look around a little.
We went down to Rehoboth (Wyman) and heard Mr. Cannon preach and looked over the country some. The thing that discouraged me most was that every man who owned land wanted to sell and I thought there must be some reason for it that they did not want to tell. George Smith bought eighty acres of what later was the Dave McCall farm. I did not buy but went home determined to move out and grow up with the country. Went back to Ohio, made a sale and sold off what we did not want to bring along and landed in Ainsworth the first day of May, 1863. Moved to Crawfordsville, where we lived in the first year in Iowa.
In the fall of 1863 we organized the congregations of Washington and Amboy, later changed to
Ainsworth. Some time in the year 1870 I was elected an elder and in 1871 was sent to Pittsburgh as
a delegate to the synod that swore to the covenant. I see a writer in the Nation says that not more
than ten persons are living now who signed that covenant. I have been at eighteen meetings of our
synod and am the only charter member of the Washington congregation and only lack a few weeks of
being 91 years old.”
“Funeral of David Love is Held Today,” Washington Evening Journal , published in Washington, Iowa, 31 Mar 1919 Page 3, columns 1 and 2.