Print
Permanent LinkSenator Comfort Harvey Van Law View All Years
COMFORT H. VAN LAW
MR. PRESIDENT: Your committee, appointed to prepare suitable resolutions commemorating the life, character and public service of the late Honorable Comfort Harvey Van Law, of Marshalltown, Iowa, begs leave to submit the following:
Comfort Harvey Van Law, attorney and legislator, died at Marshalltown, Iowa, April 20, 1948; born on a farm in Keokuk county, near Tilton, Iowa, July 19, 1869, a son of Catherine and Robert Van Law; educated in the rural schools, and his family lived for a time at Brooklyn, Iowa; at the age of eighteen he was teaching school and continued until he began to read law in 1892 in the office of Maj. John F. Lacey of Oskaloosa; attended the old Oskaloosa college and in the fall of 1893 entered the State University of Iowa and graduated in 1896, receiving his M.A. degree the following year and was admitted to the bar in October, 1897; opened a law office in Marshalltown in 1898, practicing there as an attorney for forty-eight years; married Alice Luscombe at Iowa City, August 2, 1898, Mrs. Van Law died in January, 1933. He served as city attorney from 1901 to 1905; as state senator 1908 to 1912 in the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth General Assemblies; active always in community and church affairs, serving as chairman of the official board of the Marshalltown Christian Church for more than thirty years and often filled the pulpit as a lay speaker when the church was temporarily without a pastor; he is survived by a son, Ted, an electrical engineer with the Southern California Edison company at Los Angeles, and a daughter, Mrs. Gilbert Blue, the former Alice Van Law, who has been prominent in Marshalltown as a teacher and secretary of the Y.W.C.A. A daughter, Ruth V. Van Law, passed away in 1926, and a son, James H. Van Law, an attorney in Los Angeles, passed away in 1930.
The Senate mourns the untimely death of this able and distinguished citizen of Iowa.
Therefore, Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Fifty-third General Assembly: That in the passing of the Honorable Comfort Harvey Van Law, of Marshalltown, Iowa, the state has lost a valuable and honorable citizen, and an honest statesman.
Be It Further Resolved: That a copy of this resolution be spread on the Journal of the Senate, and that the Secretary of the Senate be directed to forward enrolled copies to the members of the family of the deceased.
W. ELDON WALTER,
JOHN R. HATTERY,
RICHARD V. LEO,
Committee.
The resolution was unanimously adopted.