The site has received emails from a few visitors lately, some with queries and others with information to share. Annette, a granddaughter of actress Greta Granstedt wrote to ask how she might be related to the Lovewells, if at all.
Greta Granstedt was a very busy young lady in the burgeoning motion picture business, with about 120 listings on the Internet Movie Database. These include some two dozen which predated her first “prestige” picture, the 1930 adaptation of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene. By the 1950’s most of her roles were for television, in episodes of The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, Lassie, The Millionaire, Peter Gunn, Perry Mason and many others.
The few pages on this site which are devoted to Greta, cover some of the dramatic, headline-making events of her youth, as well as the tragic death of her mother at sea and the disappearance of her friends Glen and Bessie Hyde who tried to run the Colorado River Rapids in the Grand Canyon.
Greta was born Irene Granstedt in Scandia, Kansas, the daughter of Theodore and Emma Granstedt. Her maternal grandparents were Ben and Mary (Lovewell) Stofer. The Stofer family has very generously shared several family portraits, including a few of the lovely Mary Lovewell, whose genes surely contributed to Greta’s photogenic appeal.
I don’t believe Rhoda Lovewell will mind if I include a collage from her book The Lovewell Family Revisited, showing Greta in a variety of poses. The pictures, apparently a sheet of headshots for a talent agency, were contributed by another Stofer cousin, Greg Larkins.
A descendant of William Frank Lovewell was the latest family member to be troubled by evidence that a revered family patriarch was, in his youth, arrested on suspicion of breaking into the Lovewell Post Office. While it’s convenient to have all of those back-issues of local newspapers available to us, it also means that sloppy reporting and sheer speculation are preserved for all time, along with the occasional salient fact. Facts in this case were in especially short supply.
The incident is covered more fully on this site in “The Great Postal Caper,” where we learn that William Frank Lovewell was thought to have been Ross Calhoon’s* accomplice in an alleged crime. There were indications that someone may have tried to enter the rear of a building which housed multiple tenants. Because one of these was the Lovewell Post Office, a detective arrived in the little hamlet in northern Jewell County. After a cursory investigation Frank Lovewell and Ross Calhoon were hustled away to Junction City for a thorough interrogation and the possibility of swift justice.
As soon as lawyers arrived to represent the men the case evaporated. There was not enough evidence to warrant a preliminary hearing, let alone a trial. We’re not sure anything was actually stolen from the Post Office or whether illegal entry was even made to the building that housed it.
If William Frank Lovewell had seemed nervous as he was being grilled by investigators, his demeanor may have had more to do with the youthful mayhem he had engaged in fourteen years earlier. Responding to his brother Stephen’s bet that he couldn’t shoot out the running lights on Santa Fe No. 7 as it left Lovewell and roared away into the night towards Webber, that is exactly what 12-year-old Frank Lovewell had done to demonstrate his marksmanship.
A descendant of Stephen Lovewell wrote with a different concern, one that left me stunned. He had filled out the necessary paperwork to enroll his boy in Sons of the American Revolution, providing documentation for all marriages and births from Thomas Lovewell down to the present generation. Unfortunately, it’s Thomas who presents the problem.
There seems to be no documentary evidence to prove that Moody B. Lovewell had a son named Thomas. Census records from 1830 and 1840 merely note the number of children in certain age groups residing in each household. By 1850, when names of children were listed, Thomas was the head of his own household in Illinois, while Moody lived nearby with a few of his unmarried children. Ironically, the only sons of Moody Lovewell who are named in the census are the two who never married.
Moody’s death in 1853 generated an extensive probate record full of fascinating details, especially about his determination to spend a few months living on that piece of land in Livingston County which had been awarded to him for his service in the War of 1812. What the file does not contain is a list of potential heirs.
There is a chance that Thomas’s birth was recorded in Athens County, Ohio, in 1826 and remains safely stored there. Here’s hoping someone comes through with the goods.
*Newspapers used the two spellings interchangeably. “Calhoon” was apparently the family’s preference.