Biographical Sketches
REV. GEORGE W. LOVE, M. D.
Rev. George W. Love, M. D., of Westport, Missouri has devoted his entire life to the 2 most noble professions to which man gives his attention - the ministerial and the medical. Thus he has labored for his fellow men through a long and useful career, and all who know him hold him in the highest regard in recognition of his genuine worth.
Dr. Love was born in Rhea county, Tennessee, August 8, 1818, and attended the common schools near his home. In his 17th year, accompanied by his widowed mother and twin brother, Dr. B. F. Love, he came to Missouri, locating near Columbus, Johnson county, in the Fall of 1835. Possessed of a deeply religious nature, and feeling that his services should be given to the human race, he entered the broadest field of ministerial labor - the missionary - and in the Fall of 1837 was employed as assistant missionary to the Peoria Indians. In 1839 he was sent to take the place of Rev. E. T. Peery among the Pottawattamie Indians. In the Fall of 1839 he joined the Missouri conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was appointed to the Clinton circuit. The next year he went to the Lexington circuit, the following year to the Hillsboro circuit, and the succeeding year was sent as a missionary to the Kaw Indiana, and spent the latter part of the year in Christian work among the Delaware tribes.
On the 25th of July, 1843, George W. Love was united in marriage with Ann E. Munday, and afterward served as pastor of the churches in Richmond, Liberty, St. Joseph, Weston and Booneville, Missouri. In the Fall of 1848 he became the pastor of the First Methodist Church in New Madrid City, and for the two succeeding years was presiding elder of the Potosi district. He then filled the pastorate of a church in St. Louis for a year, and was afterward at Lexington, Missouri. While engaged in ministerial work then his left lung failed to perform its functions, and he was compelled to retire from the ministry. This led him to take up the study of medicine, and he attended a course of lectures in what is now the Missouri Medical College, but was then McDowell's College. He received his diploma from Pope's Medical College, now the St. Louis Medical College, in March, 1861, and began practice in 1852, at Pink Hill, 18 miles East of Independence. He built up that town, and was a prominent factor in its social, business and material welfare. In 1857 he removed to Wellington, Missouri, where he remained until 1862, and then spent two years in Lexington. After Price's last raid he left that place and removed to Nebraska City, where he continued for 3 years. His next place of residence was Kansas City, whence he came to Westport, where he has since remained, with the exception of 7 years spent in Joplin, Missouri, where he removed on account of his wife's health.
Mrs. Love died on the 20th of August, 1890. They were the parents of 9 children, 4 of whom reached mature years, namely: Dr. Lewis; R. A.,; Annabel, wife of John March, of Kansas City; and C. H. who is engaged in the drug business in St. Louis. The family is connected with the Methodist church, and the Doctor is a local preacher in the same. Socially he is connected with several organizations. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, holds a membership with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was noble grand of the lodge at Wellington at the time of the breaking out of the civil war. In his political views he was in early life a whig, but on the dissolution of that party he joined the ranks of the democracy, and has since been one of its champions, although he has never sought or desired political preferment. He is the oldest practicing physician in Westport, and has a liberal patronage. Few men are more familiar with the early history of this state than the Doctor, and he will deserves mention among its honored pioneers.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.