LOVEJOY, Alva Bush, Judge 1867-1944

LOVEJOY, SKINNER, COTTRELL, HACKER, STEVENSON, WILSON, POLLOCK

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 4/1/2012 at 15:27:36

A. B. LOVEJOY
JURIST, DEAD
AT 76 HERE

Heart Ailment Fatal
After Week in Hospital;
Rites Saturday

District Judge Alva Bush Lovejoy, resident here since 1902 and a presiding jurist in the Tenth district court for 14 years, was dead Thursday, victim, of a heart ailment.

Seventy-six years old and a resident at 1023 West Third street, the judge, stricken at his home August 16, had been seriously ill and under care at Allen Memorial Hospital for a week preceding his death at 7:50 p.m. Wednesday;

Funeral services will be at 2:30 p,m. Saturday in First Presbyterian Church, in charge of Rev. H. E. Dierenfield, pastor. Burial will be in Elmwood Cemetery. The body Thursday was at the O'Keefe & Towne funeral home.

In failing health for more than a year, Judge Lovejoy had been a patient at University Hospital, Iowa City, in July 1943, preparatory to and August, an operation which was later called off because of his condition. He returned to his courthouse offices and the bench a short time later and had been active since. His elevation to the bench In 1930 was the last step in a long legal career in Black Hawk and Mitchell Counties.

He came to Waterloo in 1902 from Osage, la., where he had gone following his graduation from the University of Iowa in 1894 with a law degree. During his eight years of law During his eight years of law practice in Osage he was a partner of J. H. Sweeney, and one year after coming here he became a partner of Sherman T. Mears. The two were In partnership for 22 years, after which, in 1925, they joined with Walter P, Jensen and John W. Gwynne to form the firm of Mears, Lovejoy, Jensen & Gwynne, of which Lovejoy was an active member for five years. Mears and Jensen are now dead and Gwynne is United States representative from the Third Iowa district.

Judge Lovejoy was appointee to the district court bench here in January, 1930, by Governor John Hammill and was elected for his first term in November that year. Before starting his law career Judge Lovejoy was a school teacher, farmer and administrator

He taught in Mitchell County schools from 1886 to 1888 and in 1891 and 1892 was principal a Woodward and at Keystone, Iowa. He served as Mitchell County attorney for six years daring his residence in Osage and in 1907- 08 was assistant county attorney of Black Hawk County while his partner, Mears, was county attorney.

In the Black Hawk County Bar association he was president, in 1929 and 1930, and he held the same office in Iowa District Judges association in 1940-41. He also had been president of Waterloo Optimist club and a governor of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, a fraternal order.

For 10 years he was the legal adviser on the Young Women's Christian association board of trustees here. Judge Lovejoy also was a member of the Iowa State Bar association and First Presbyterian Church, Waterloo.

Born at Rock Creek. The son of George Brooks Lovejoy and Mary J. (Skinner) Lovejoy, he was born September 1, 1867 at Rock Creek, Iowa, in Mitchell County. He attended Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage and Iowa State college, at Ames, and was a graduate of the University of Iowa.

On January 8, 1895, he married Carrie L. Cottrell at Woodward, Iowa.

Surviving are the widow; two adopted daughters, Mrs. Joseph F. Hacker, Rainbow Drive, and Mrs. W. J. Stevenson, Los Angeles, California; a brother, George, of Fresno, California, two sisters, Mrs. Ethel Wilson, Moscow, Ida., and Mrs. Andrew Pollock, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The jurist for many years was an enthusiastic fisherman, an ardent cribbage player and a tireless reader. He had presided over many Important trials and hearings throughout Iowa in the last 14 years.

Waterloo Daily Courier, Thursday,
August 24, 1944

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