Samuel Krell

KRELL, SHAW

Posted By: Kent Transier (email)
Date: 3/26/2006 at 08:58:21

REV. SAMUEL KRELL.

The subject of this sketch was born in Madison County, Iowa, October 15, 1856. With his parents he moved to Ohio when two years old. They remained there eight years, when they returned to Iowa and settled in Madison County. Brother Krell was converted when nine years of age, and united with the Evangelical Church. He attended Naperville College four years, then entered Simpson College, but was compelled to leave school during his first year on account of sickness.

On March 6, 1870, he was united in marriage to Miss Barbara Shaw. To this union were born four sons, all of whom are still living, the oldest being a senior in Simpson College.

Brother Krell was licensed to exhort in the spring of 1879, and licensed to preach and admitted to the Annual Conference the same year. He remained in the active work of the ministry four years, when he was compelled to retire on account of an affliction of the throat. During this enforced retirement he transferred his membership from the Evangelical to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1891 he was admitted to the Des Moines Annual Conference, and appointed to Stanton Circuit one year. He was then appointed to Carl Circuit three years, to Stewart Circuit one year, and to Audubon Circuit two years. During his second year at Audubon he enlisted in the Fifty-first Iowa Regiment, and served his country well and faithfully for eighteen months in the Philippine Islands. He was discharged at San Francisco, Cal., November 2, 1898. The 1st of the following April he was appointed by the Presiding elder to the Hillsdale Circuit to fill out an unexpired term. At the Conference of 1899 he was appointed to the Lacona Circuit, and returned to the same charge in 1900. He served it faithfully until the day of his death. Brother Krell's death occurred under the most distressing circumstances. He had been holding protracted-meetings at Lacona for a week or two, assisted by Rev. Mr. Tanner. The Sunday morning service consisted of a love-feast and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. After he and his wife went home from the church they conversed for some time about the work, and he seemed very despondent. After she left him, to prepare the noonday meal, he wrote several letters to his family and others, then sat down on the side of the bed and shot himself through the temples with a revolver he had borrowed from the hardware dealer the day before. He lived about an hour after the fatal shot, but never spoke or regained consciousness.

Brother Krell received a sunstroke while in the Philippines, and was never entirely well afterwards. His nerves were badly affected, and he had times of great despondency. It was in one of these despondent moods that he took his life. He lived a most consistent Christian life, and was a faithful worker for the Master.

O.N. MAXSON.

Source: Iowa Wesleyan College Archives

Minutes of the Des Moines 43rd Annual Conference, 1902

Madison Biographies maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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