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Ireland to Illinois and Iowa
About one mile off Law road in the west-central part of Woodland township in a sunny valley is the home where Lloyd and Louise Law live. The husband has lived there the entire seventy-five years of his life. They plan to remain there the balance of their lives although the farm has been sold to their third son Donald, who also owns and manages another farm on West Polsgrove road where he lives with his family.
Lloyd and Louise speak as if they are retired, but whenever needed they help out their son doing all necessary farm work as a team in the same way they have done since their marriage.
These two hundred acres are part of the original one thousand acres purchased by Andrew Law, Lloyd's grandfather on arriving in Carroll county from Ireland shortly after his marriage at Drummond in 1846. Andrew who was born in 1823 was married to Ann Cruthers by Rev. McWilliams. Their attendants were Bessie Rutledge and Charles Hill as shown by their marriage license preserved by Ruth (Mrs. Lawrence) Miller, a cousin of Lloyd's, also living on a part of the original farm.
The Andrew Laws oldest child, Thomas, was born in Ireland. On coming here they purchased from the government one thousand acres at Camp Creek, six miles northeast of Savanna. They dug out a home in the hill, put up poles stretching over the top a blanket which they covered with a sod roof where they lived while building a log house. Later they built a "rock house."
In the early days Indians frequently came to beg or steal food. By that time a second child was born, Sarah, and when the mother would see Indians, she would grab a child under each arm and run for home. The nearest market and mill was at Galena; the father would drive his ox team there with wheat, returning with the ground mea/ and staples.
"Rock House" Sam Adams was their nearest neighbor one-half mile east at the foot of the hill. As fires could be started only by rubbing
wood or rocks together, a most difficult task, they were carefully kept burning. On many occasions, Sam would arrive at the Laws with a bucket to get a burning coal which he would cover with a few ashes and carry home to replenish his fires.
The Laws had thirteen children, Thomas, Sarah, (Mrs. William Law), Andrew, Margaret (Mrs. David Irvin), Robert, Mary (Mrs. Edward Palmer), Matthew, Charles, Eliza, (Mrs. William Adams), John, Edward, Emma (Mrs. David Gillogley), and George.
As the sons grew to manhood and married they built their homes on this land, each having about two hundred acres. It was known as the Laws settlement. As the older sons became self-sufficient, they would buy and move to other farms in the community leaving the younger ones to live on the same land, so it became the custom for the younger ones to continue farming the original Law farms.
Andrew Law died February 23, 1904 and his wife, January 3, 1912. The Law rock house burned in September 1925, while the Edward Law family, Lloyd's parents, owned and lived there. They used the rock walls for the foundation of the bungalow they rebuilt there and covered the outside with stucco. Merle E. Law, second son of Lloyd and Louise (Getz) Law and his wife, Florence, with their three children, Cinthia, Kevin and Scott, now own and live in the rock house, the fourth and fifth generation to reside there.
The Lloyd Laws have two other sons, both farmers; their oldest son, Lloyd, Jr., owns and resides on Oakton road in Washington township about three miles south west of his parents home; and Vernon, their youngest, owns and resides on a farm south west of Wacker.
The son of Mathew and Ida Law, who owned the Law building and operated a meat market for many years, Rhene B. Law, was born in Savanna in 1900. The father died in 1928. He had one brother Loyal Law and one sister, Wilma Johnson, who left Savanna soon after her marriage. Rhene was graduated from the University of Illinois in 1933 and for several years remained as athletic coach.
Returning to Savanna he operated the Law-Pierce mortuary on north Main street, later in the L. H. Bowen home at Third and Washington. In the early '40's he removed his
business then known as the Law Funeral Home to the former city hospital building where he continued until his death in 1958.
Mr. Law was elected mayor of Savanna serving from 1937 to '43 and from 1946 to '49. He married Natalie Brown. Their two children are Mimi (Mrs. Paul Howell of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) and son Rhene B. (Si) who married Gretchen Meyer in 1959. They have three children, Heather, Douglas and Rhene R.
"Si" was graduated from Knox College and Worsham College of Mortuary Science in Chicago. He returned to Savanna to enter business with his father in 1957 six months before the father's death. He continued the Law funeral home until 1966 when he and Melvin Jones who was operating the Hunter-Jones Memorial Funeral Home merged their businesses continuing at the Jones location. The former Law business site is now an apartment building. The new location was the Machen family home for many years.
"Si" was the first president of the Savanna youth guidance council. He has personally "taken under his wing" many of the youth of this area. He presently has as his special interest the Savanna chapter of the cancer society and is chairman of the Red Cross blood bank for the county.
William G. Law was born in Savanna in 1871 to William B. Law and the former Sarah J. Law, a daughter of Andrew Law of Washington township, in the family home where the Savanna township library now stands. The father left County Fermanagh in 1857 spending about ten years working in the mines of Australia and New Zealand before coming to Savanna. Here he had a billiard hall and started building residences and store buildings. They had two children, William George and Fanny.
Son William G. first worked in the drug store of Charlie Kellogg. Deciding to go into the business, he was graduated from the Illinois College of Pharmacy, Chicago and opened for business in the north half of a small one-story frame building in 1892.
After the death of Bothwell Pulford in 1905, Law and a banker named Peck from Thomson bought the Pulford business for a second store, moving the little frame building to the back of the lot where they kept their stock. Later the same year they built the present building closing the business in the Pulford opera house. In 1922, Law took his two sons, Boyd and Ives, both registered pharmacists, into partnership with him and changed the name of his business to Law Drug Company; the sons also started a drug store in Belvidere moving to that city but continuing their interest here.
William G. Law died in 1939, and the drug store in Savanna was taken over by the oldest son, Ives Law and his mother Hazel who continued the business for 23 years. Following the death of Ives, his sons Richard and Jason Law took over his interest. Neither was a druggist at heart, both being Navy men. Capt. Richard Law is in command of part of the Pacific Fleet stationed at Hawaii; and Commander Jason Law of a division of the East Coast Fleet. It was this Jason who unveiled the Pierce monument at the Savanna centennial,
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