Kelley, Edmund Levi submitted by Dick Barton

Kelley, Edmund Levi, presiding Bishop of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, whose signature appears in business circles as E. L. Kelley, is a resident of Lamoni, Decatur County, but was formerly a resident of Glenwood, Mills County, and from 1874 to 1884 a member of the law firm of Kelley Bros. at that place.  His father, Richard Yancey Kelley, moved from Illinois to Mills County in 1854, arriving there in the month of October.  He entered a piece of and engaged in farming, and owned one of the best farms in the county at the time of his death, which occurred June 10, 1861.  Richard Y. Kelley was the grandson of Richard Kelley and Maria Gibbs, who immigrated to America in 1773, settled in North Carolina, and took part with the patriots in the war for Independence.  They reared a family of seven boys, among the number, Benjamin Franklin Kelley, who was born March 4, 1784.  This son, Benjamin, at an early time moved to Middle Tennessee and made himself a home in the forests of Robinson County, near Nashville, and in 1805 was married to Miss Nancy Yancey, born August 27, 1787, daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Austin Yancey.  Benjamin F. Kelley and wife raised a family of six sons and one daughter, among the number, Richard Y. Kelley, who was born January 23, 1814.  On May 31, 1837, he was married to Miss Sarah E. F. Ballowe at Nashville, Tennessee.  Miss Ballowe was born in the state of Virginia, July 3, 1814.  Her parents were Virginians.  Her father, Eli P. Ballowe, born March 3, 1786, and her mother, Sarah Howard Winfrey, August 3, 1795.  They were extensive planters and slave holders, and when Miss Sarah Ballowe was in her tenth year they moved to Tennessee and built a home near Nashville, where many of the relatives still live.  Samuel Winfrey, a brother of Miss Sarah Winfrey, who lives four miles east of Nashville, on the Murfreesborough road, is a man of extensive resources, and during the War of the Rebellion his house was the headquarters for a number of the federal officers stationed at Nashville.  Mrs. Mary S. Welch, a sister of Mrs. Sarah E. F. Kelley, also still lives and has good property in Nashville.

Richard Y. Kelley was opposed to the idea of slavery, and upon his marriage decided to try a free state.  In the fall of 1837 he moved with his wife to Johnson County, Illinois, where they continued to reside until going to western Iowa in 1854.  Here they reared a family, all of whom were born in Illinois prior to going to Iowa, consisting of seven sons and one daughter, namely:

Benjamin Franklin Kelley, the eldest, at one time a large farmer and stockman of Mills County, now deceased.  His family lives in Mills County, respected by those who know them.

John S. Kelley, an honorable and worthy farmer, who resided on the old homestead in Mills County; died since the writing of this sketch.

.. William H. Kelley, a resident of Kirtland, Ohio.  A minister of eloquent and pleasing address, and author of a work entitled "Presidency and Priesthood in the Church of Christ."  He enlisted in the army in 1864, and was honorably discharged at Washington in 1865, at the close of the war.

Mrs. Mary J. H. Ryerson, wife of Mr. John Ryerson, a farmer in Mills County.

Edmund L. Kelley, the subject of this sketch.

George T. Kelley, attorney at law; graduate of the State University of Iowa, and now practicing law at Plainville, Nebraska.

Parley P. Kelley, attorney at law, Glenwood; graduate of the State University, and one of the best posted attorneys in the western part of the state.  P. P. Kelley died at his home in Glenwood since this sketch was written.

James M. Kelley, cashier of the State Bank of Macedonia, Pottawattamie County.  He is a graduate of the Iowa State University.

Edmund L. Kelley was born the 17th of November, 1844, near Vienna, Johnson County, Illinois.  When ten years of age his father moved to western Iowa, which at that time was little settled, the Indian trail being then the most conspicuous mark of bottoms and fine rolling prairies, and the dark-skinned hunter a familiar object to the settler.  The subscription school was relied upon in great part for the advantages of an education, and three months in the winter and two in summer the maximum time to be used in mental improvement by those best prepared to take advantage of the situation.

The 15th of April, 1861, his father started him to school at Glenwood, with the statement that he might go as long as he wanted to, an the country boy in blue jeans began his work with a satisfied heart.  Not two months passed, however, before the death of the father called the boy home to work on the farm, and the next schooling of importance was in the fall of 1862, when he went back to Glenwood, found a place where he could do chores for his board and studied until the middle of December, when upon the recommendation of the principal of the school and the county superintendent, he took a large school on Silver Creek in Mills County and taught his first term.  Judge W. S. Lewis, of Mills County, then a small boy, received his first start at this term of school.  At the close of the term, having a desire for a better education, he arranged with the county superintendent and judge to recommend him to the State University under the law providing for representatives from each county, and in April, 1863, he began a course of study in the University as the first representative student from Mills County.

The hard times of 1863 and 1864 made it necessary for him to "hire out" during the vacation and labor on a farm to replenish his exchequer, which he did at Iowa City, attending school while in session, until May, 1864, when he returned home and began teaching  in Pottawattamie County, and in the winter taught again on Silver Creek, Mills County, where he had taught his first term.

In the year 1865 he determined to try a business education, and took a course in the H. G. Eastman Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York.  In December, 1865, he called upon the state superintendent at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and applied for a school.  The superintendent had just received application for a teacher for the boys' high school at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the boys of the raging canal on the Susquehanna having succeeded in driving two teachers from the school at the point of stone ink jugs.  Arrangements were at once entered into in which Kelley agreed to remain in the school and conduct it or charge nothing for his services.  At the end of a four months' term he received unanimous commendation from the Association of Teachers at Williamsport, and the special thanks of Dr. Armstrong of Dickenson College for his work among the boys.

Western life, however, had not lost its attractions for him, and he left Williamsport for the west, and taught in the public schools of Illinois and Iowa until September, 1867, when he entered upon the drug business at Logan, Harrison County, Iowa.  In 1873 he graduated from the law department of the Iowa State University, and the same year was elected superintendent of schools of Mills County, where he resided.  His work was sufficiently satisfactory, so that when a successor was to be chosen he was assured by the leaders of both political parties in the county that if he was a candidate for the position there would be no opposition to him.  however, having entered upon the practice of the law, he declined to continue further in school work.  In law he was successful.  His practice grew rapidly, and he was admitted to practice in the United District and Circuit Courts and in the Supreme Court of the United States.

In the year 1881 the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, of which he is a member, selected him to act in connection with Hon. Z. H. Gurley of Decatur County, Iowa, upon a committee to urge upon Congress the necessity of passing an effective law against the practice of polygamy in the territories of the United states, and early in December of that year he proceeded to Washington and, with Mr. Gurley, began work among the members of the Forty-seventh Congress upon that question.  They issued and placed in the hands of each member of Congress and the President, a pamphlet entitled "The Utah Problem and Its Solution," and subsequently another, entitled "Polygamy a Crime - Not a religion."  The committee was also favored with a personal interview with President Arthur in which to present its views and documents, and Mr. Kelley made an argument before the House Judiciary committee upon the question, answering the speech of Mr. Cannon, the Utah delegate.  The committee later learned from Hon. Edwin F. Willits that when he, with others of the committee called upon the President to ascertain what the President had to recommend touching the Utah question, the President placed the documents furnished him by the committee in their hands, asking for them a careful consideration.

After the passage of the law known as the Edmunds Bill the committee quit Washington, and in April, 1882, Mr. Kelley was appointed Counselor to the Bishop of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints and continued to fill this position until the death of the Bishop in September, 1890, when he acted in the office by virtue of appointment and his trusteeship as Counselor until the General Conference of the Society, and on the 10th of April, 1891, he was chosen the Presiding Bishop of the Reorganized Church, which position he continues to fill.

This position, in addition to spiritual duties in the church to which he belongs, makes him the chief financial officer of the body.  His special work is to look after all church properties and finances, and the receipts and expenditures of himself and agents annually amount to more than $100,000, and the church property of which he is trustee is valued at upwards of half a million.  He is also president of the Board of Publication of the Herald Publishing House, Lamoni.  From 1884 until 1891 he resided, with his family, at Kirtland, Ohio, to better perform his work as Counselor in the church, and when there took as active interest in the public schools and other work, was a member of the board of education and held commissions as justice and notary from Governors Foraker and Campbell.

In his church work, as any other, he has always been ready to present and defend either in public or private, any principle or doctrine that he believed, and in maintaining these has met in public discussion some of the most eminent debaters in the United States.  Among his public debates may be mentioned that in Kansas City in 1882 with Mr. David Eckles, leader of the Liberal League at that time in that city.  In 1884 he held a discussion with Rev. Clark Braden of the Disciple, or Christian Church.  This debate was published in a large volume containing 400 pages, and has already had a second edition.  In 1888 he engaged in a discussion with Rev. J. D. Whitehead, Christadelphian, in Boston, Massachusetts.  Later he held a discussion at Lee's Summit, Missouri, with Rev. D. B. Ray, D. D., of the Baptist Church, St. Louis, and in 1889 with Mr. D. R. Dungan, at the time professor of Theology in Drake University and later president of Bethany College, Nebraska.

Mr. Kelley is one of the projectors and promoters of Graceland College, located at Lamoni, Iowa.  This is a non-sectarian school in all its departments and features, and so guaranteed to be in its articles of incorporation, notwithstanding the fact that it is under the fostering care of the church.  Religion, as such, is not taught in the school, and the professors religiously have membership with different denominations, or are not members of any church.  He was elected a member of the board of trustees and directors at the beginning of the institution and filled these positions until April 20, 1900, when he resigned both places.

Politically, Mr. Kelley is a republican, having cast his first vote for General Grant for President and has last for William McKinley.  In 1873 he was elected on the anti-monopolist ticket for superintendent of schools, and in 1875 was a candidate on an independent ticket in Mills County against Hon. John Y. Stone for Representative, but was defeated in the election by 125 votes.  He is a protectionist and bimetallist in sentiment and voted for McKinley believing that was the preferable way to attain both objects.

On the 21st of December, 1876, he was married to Miss Cassie Bishop, daughter of Mr. John and Mrs. Mary Bishop, Malvern, Iowa, and from this union they have a family of eight children, ranging in age from twenty-two down to three years, and named as follows:  Winifred Bishop, born November 30, 1877; he was a soldier in Co. M, 50th Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, during Spanish-American war; now law student Iowa State University; Edmund L., Jr., born march 25, 1880; Richard Carlyle, born September 30, 1882; Laura Belle, born September 20, 1884; Jeannette Vivian, born July 23, 1887; Joseph Stanley, born February 4, 1890; David Emlin, born October 16, 1893, and Ruth Alix, born December 8, 1896.  Miss Bishop was born in Monroe County, Iowa, and reared in Monroe and Mills Counties.  Her father's family were from Danbury, Connecticut; he was a corporal in an Indiana company in the Mexican was and slightly wounded at the battle of Buena Vista.  Her mother, formerly Miss Mary J. Humeston, was born in Indiana and was in that state married to Mr. Bishop.  Mr. Bishop is a thorough stockman and owns an extensive ranch, stocked with cattle and horses, at Bailey, Cherry County, Nebraska.

On the 9th of April, 1807, Bishop Kelley was called to the position of Counselor to the President of the church of which he is a member, and has filled this position since, in connection with his duties as Presiding Bishop of the society.