A.H. "Bert" Lovett

LOVETT, COOPER

Posted By: Rebecca Foster (email)
Date: 9/7/2014 at 12:39:19

RITES TODAY FOR CAPT., LOVETT, LONG A PILOT ON RIVER

Services will be held at 3 this afternoon in the Hill and Fredericks chapel for Capt. A. H. “Bert” Lovett. 78 of 1230 Arlington Avenue , Davenport , who died at 6:24 a. m. Friday. He had been hospitalized several months. He had been a Mississippi river man many years.
The Rev. F. G. Codd will officiate at the rites, and burial will be in Oakdale cemetery.
Capt. Lovett was born Dec. 2, 1875, in Lorraine, N. Y., the son of the Rev. Eldon H. Lovett and Martha Mclaughlin Lovett, and came to Davenport with his parents in 1892 when his father served as minister of Calvary Baptist church. He attended Davenport High school , Pillsbury Academy , Owatonna , Minn. And Colgate academy, Hamilton N. Y.

Capt. Lovett learned the river under Capt. Walter A. Blair of Davenport starting in 1892 on the “Silver Crescent” and the “Helen Blair” After working aboard steamers of the Diamond Jo Lines including the “Pittsburg” and ------(unreadable)

Pilots license. It was then Captain Lovett received his master’s license at the age of 23, the youngest pilot on the inland waterways at the time.

Later, Capt Lovett worked on the Streckfus steamers. He was renowned for his gift of letting exciting and humorous yarns of the river and of early Davenport personalities and events.

In 1902, he became associated with the Rock Island railroad as secretary to passenger agent L. M. Allen in Chicago , and returned to Davenport as city ticket agent in 1906. He later became passenger and freight agent.
In later years he was master and pilot of the steamers of the U. S. Engineer’s corps of the Rock Island District and in 1929 he worked on the fleet of steamers of the Federal Barge Line. In December, 1943 Capt. Lovett retired but continued to do “trip work” for a number of lines.

He was a member of Masonic lodge No 37 A. F. & M. and was a life member of the Calvary Baptist church, where he was soloist for a number of years.

His marriage to Myrtle Buck took place April 18, 1905, in Peoria , Ill.

Survivors include his son, Robert E. Lovett, East Moline ; a daughter, Helen Lovett Cooper, Davenport ; a sister, Helen Lovett Marker. Ann Archer, Mich. And five grandsons, James, Tom and Brian Lovett, David Lovett Cooper, Jr. and Robert McBride Cooper Jr. He was preceded in death by his wife in 1950 and by his brother, William P. Lovett, and by a sister.

Source: Saturday Morning Democrat, Davenport, Ia., 02 Jan 1954, p. 6.

Contributed by Sue Rekkas