Albion Interactive History / People / Lura Church

Albion Interactive History

Albion Interactive History / People

Church, Lura Ann Warner, 1807
 
    Died October 2, 1883

Lura Ann Warner was born in Gorham Township, Ontario County, New York, the daughter of Wareham Warner. Her family moved to Monroe County, New York, where she met Chandler Munson Church, a self-taught educator and surveyor. The couple married on April 2, 1829.

In 1834, the Church family moved to Calhoun County, settling outside of the town of Albion. The move took one month, with the family traveling by ox team through Canada. The final residence on the homestead was built of wood cut on the farm, which the Churches took to town for milling. The interior woodwork was oak and walnut.

Lura bore five children. Their son Wareham was killed in an accident on the farm in 1835, when Chandler was away. Reluctant to bury him without her husband, Lura washed the body and laid it out according to the custom of the times. She placed it in a dresser drawer in an unused and unheated room in the house. The intense cold kept the body preserved until Chandler returned and burial could take place.

Lura and her husband were staunch supporters of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Albion Female College.

By 1851, the family was again on the move, this time to California. They retained ownership of the homestead and 300 acres of land near Albion. The Churches traveled by the water route and settled on a ranch they called the “Buckeye.”

Chandler Church died in California in 1857; Lura returned to Albion in 1869 and commenced living in a house in town built by her father. One of her surviving sons took over the Albion homestead, while the other remained at the California ranch. Lura died in Albion on October 2, 1883.

Source: Albion Public Library, Local History Room

From: Albion AAUW. Some Notable Women of the Albion Area. Albion, Michigan: American Association of University Women. 1998.

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