ALONZO F. DOVE, postmaster at Hamilton, is a native of Greenwood County and son of a pioneer family there. For many years he followed the work of educator in his native county and since retiring from the school room has been engaged in telephone work and has handled loans and insurance at Hamilton, where his last teaching work was done and during the present administration was appointed to the office of postmaster.
Mr. Dove's English ancestors emigrated to Virginia in the colonial period of our history. In Rockingham County of that state was born Henry Dove on February 7, 1765. He married Susannah Hoffman, who was born in Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, June 26, 1777. The grandfather of Mr. Dove, Elijah Dove, was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, July 27, 1811, where he spent most of his life and raised his family. In later years he went to Illinois and spent the rest of his life in that state. He died at Shelbyville, Illinois, in 1906. Elijah Dove had two brothers, Ruben Dove, whose home was in Winchester, Ohio, and Jacob Dove of Warsaw, Indiana. There were five sisters, namely: Laney Dove (Montgomery), Peggy Dove (Orwic), Mary Dove (Hummel), Annie Dove (Benadnur), all of Winchester, Ohio, and Elizabeth Dove (Kistler) of Warsaw, Indiana. The wife of Elijah Dove, Anna Mary Small, was born in York, Pennsylvania, March 18, 1814. She was a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Louchs) Small, both of whom were born in York County, Pennsylvania, John Small on September 16, 1781, and Elizabeth Louchs on January 16, 1794. The Louchs family were French Huguenots. Mrs. Anna Mary (Small) Dove had four brothers, Israel, John, Jacob and Aaron, and four sisters, Lucy, Tarcy, Cordelia and Caroline, all of Shelbyville, Illinois. Elijah and Anna Mary (Small) Dove had a large family of thirteen children. Those still living are: Samuel, a farmer at Billings, Montana; Edward H., a retired farmer at Severy, Kansas; Mrs. Delicia Brobst, who resides at Marcy, Ohio, where her husband was a merchant; Elizabeth Basch who lives in Colorado.
It was in 1868 that the Dove family was transplanted to the plains of Kansas and located on some of the virgin prairies of Greenwood County. Jacob Small Dove was head of the family at the time. He was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, April 22, 1840, grew up there, then removed to Shelby County, Illinois, where he was married, and in 1869 he brought his family to Greenwood County, Kansas. His homestead was 160 acres of land on Otter Creek. He lived a very industrious though quiet life, enjoyed a reasonable degree of prosperity and had sufficient for his own needs and ample provision for his growing family. He was from first to last a democrat and his chief interest outside his family and business was the Methodist Episcopal Church. He served both as steward and class leader, and always bore his share of responsibilities in the maintenance of church activities in the community. His death occurred on his farm on Otter Creek November 17, 1878. Jacob S. Dove married Emaline Neil. She was born in Shelby County, Illinois, January 29, 1849, and died at Wichita Hospital January 6, 1908. She was a daughter of John and Sarah Ann (Shultz) Neil, the former born in Tennessee in 1811, and died in Shelby County, Illinois, in 1877, and the latter born in Tennessee in 1816, and died in Shelby County, Illinois, in 1869. Mrs. Sarah Ann Neil had three brothers, Jake, Joab and Martin, and one sister, Katie. The parents of these children, the Shultzes, were from Germany and spoke and read the German language. John Neil had two brothers, Landon and Matt, and three half brothers and three half sisters. Four children were born to Jacob S. and Emaline Dove: Arthur N., who died when four years of age; Alonzo F.; Jesse R., a farmer at Oswego, Kansas, and Daisy D., wife of Elmer J. Weaver, a farmer in Greenwood County.
Mr. Alonzo F. Dove was born at the old homestead in Otter Creek in Greenwood County, December 11, 1873. His environment was that of the farm and the rural district until he was seventeen years of age. While he learned the practical details of farming he never followed it to any extent as an occupation. After leaving his mother's home in 1891 he spent two years as a farmer in Shelby County, Illinois. In the meantime he had progressed through the rural schools of Greenwood County, and an ambition for a higher education stimulated many of his early efforts. After leaving Illinois he entered Hillsdale College at Hillsdale, Michigan, where he was graduated with a normal diploma in 1895. In the meantime, during the winter of 1893, he was a student in Stanberry Normal School at Stanberry, Missouri. Later he attended several terms in the State Normal School of Emporia.
From the time he returned from Hillsdale College Mr. Dove taught every winter for thirteen consecutive years. Each summer he spent on a farm or attending school, and he arranged his affairs so that he lost practically no part of the year on account of vacations or the enforced idleness due to the winter seasons. In 1905 Mr. Dove came to Hamilton, Kansas, and for two years was principal of the Hamilton schools. That concluded his work as a teacher and since 1907 he has been in the loan and insurance business.
He has acquired some valuable property interests, including his residence on Jackson Street. He also owns a farm of 160 acres in Otter Creek Township of Greenwood County, is a stockholder, secretary and manager of the Hamilton Mutual Telephone Company, and is owner and proprietor of the Star Theater. He assumed his duties as postmaster at Hamilton in January, 1915.
Mr. Dove is a democrat, a member of the Baptist Church; and is affiliated with Hamilton Camp No. 1817 of the Modern Woodmen of America.
He was married July 12, 1905, in Chase County, Kansas, to Miss Rosina Belle Proeger, born in Chase County, Kansas, March 17, 1881, a daughter of George H. and Emma (Beasley) Proeger. Her father was born in Zottishofen, Germany, July 19, 1833, and came to this country in 1854 and to Lyon County, Kansas, in 1857. He was an honored veteran of the Civil war, serving in Company C, Eleventh Kansas Volunteers, having enlisted August 23, 1862, and was mustered out with the company August 7, 1865. Most of his military service was under Preston B. Plumb, and he was with the troops that repelled Price's raid and did a large amount of service against the guerrillas on the border. Soon after the war he settled on a farm in Chase County and was married March 10, 1872. They raised a family of nine children, six girls and three boys. Mrs. Proeger died August 17, 1907. He retired from the farm in 1909, moving to Emporia, where he lived till his death, April 11, 1917. Emma (Beasley) Proeger was born in Piatt County, Illinois, and was among the early settlers of Chase County, Kansas.
Mr. and Mrs. Dove have three children: Dorothy Emma, born September 17, 1907; Alice Allegra, born March 23, 1910; and Frances Eleanor, born May 3, 1913.
A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, copyright 1918; transcribed 1997.
