My Genealogy Hound

Robert A. Love, dealer in general merchandise at Rolla, and senior member of the firm of Robert A. Love & Son, was born in Floyd County, Ind., in 1832, and is the son of Isaac and Pheba (Conley) Love. Isaac Love was born in Tennessee in 1782, and was of Scotch-German descent. He was married in his native State, and afterward started for Missouri, but stopped in Floyd County, Ind., where he remained until 1832, when he came to Phelps County, Mo., and located eight miles north of the county seat. He was a farmer by occupation, but the latter part of his life he sold goods. He died in 1865. The mother was born in Knox County, East Tenn., in 1792, and died in 1868. She was the mother of twelve children, eleven of whom lived to be grown, and our subject being the youngest. He was but six weeks old when his parents moved to Missouri, and was reared to manhood in Phelps County. February 2, 1853, he married Miss Amanda Miller, daughter of John and Nancy Miller, and a native of Tennessee. She was born in 1828. Ten children have been born to this union: Eliza E., wife of John S. Livesay, treasurer of Phelps County, Mo., and hardware merchant of Rolla; George L., member of the firm of R. A. Love & Son; Thomas E., hardware merchant in Rolla, and a member of the firm of Livesay, Love & Co.; Nellie C., wife of Noel A. Kinney, express agent at Rolla; Charles F., salesman in his father’s store; Triza Carrie, died March 18, 1876, at the age of eighteen; James W., born December 2, 1861, died July 5, 1865; Lea M., born April 10, 1863, died September 7, 1866; Eddie A., born October 11, 1872, died March 5, 1873, and one child, born September 2, 1857, died at birth. Mr. Love resided near the old home place until 1860, when he moved to Rolla, and during the war was captain of Company A, Sixty-third Regiment Home Militia. In 1864 he was elected sheriff of Phelps County, and two years later was re-elected, filling that position for four years. In 1867 he became a partner in the mercantile firm of Campbell, Love & Co., and in 1867-68 they erected the Rolla Flour Mills, at a cost of $40,000. After the mill was erected Mr. Love sold his interest in the store, and the mill firm was the same. He remained in the mill for eleven years, and in 1870 established a store, the firm being Love, Smith & Co. About 1872 he sold his interest, and the following year bought new property, established a store, and in 1876 his son, George L., became a partner, and from that date until the present the firm has been R. A. Love & Son. Mr. Love retained an interest in the mill until 1879, and is the next oldest merchant in Rolla. He is a Republican in politics, casting his first presidential vote for Bell and Everett. He was a member of the school board of Rolla two terms, and a member of the city council a number of years, and he has been a member of the Missionary Baptist Church for seventeen years, and his wife for thirty years, he having been deacon ever since joining the church. He is a Master Mason, and an excellent citizen. In every sense of the word Mr. Love is a self-made man, receiving little or no schooling, and never attending school more than two months at any one time in his life; he commenced for himself very poor, the first money he received ($9) being in payment of six weeks of labor at rafting down the Gasconade River. He is now well-to-do and of acknowledged prominence.