On Wednesday, we headed south to Lovington, the town where Dick's and my great grandfather Martin Gilbert Cottrell, spent the last years of his life as a Baptist preacher. Lovington is the county seat of Lea County, and is tight against the Texas border.
We started out by meeting Ginger Byrum, a terrific lady who with several others is continuing to keep up the Antioch Cemetery. It's where James and Mary Baker are buried. James Baker was M.G. Cottrell's first cousin (James' father Josiah was the brother of M.G.'s mother Louisa); Jim Baker took M.G. in around 1930 when M.G. was 75 years old. According to our Baker cousins who still live there, M.G. simply showed up one day. The rumor was he'd been in Old Mexico one step ahead of the law. Some story about having shot a man in Texas... Jim and Mary Baker were known for taking in anyone, family or not. A soldier in uniform staggered onto the Baker place around 1918, sick with some ailment. He died there, and the Bakers saw him buried in the cemetery as an Unknown Soldier.
David Minton of Lovington arranged for us to meet several people who had known M.G. (or Gilbert or "Dad" or "Uncle Gib" as he was known there): Junior Fort, Walter Beverly and, delightfully, a Baker cousin -- granddaughter of Jim Baker -- Jane Hester. We heard that M.G. was a pulpit-pounding preacher who wanted "Blessed Assurance" as a hymn every Sunday. He lived in a little one-room building first on the Baker farm and then after Jim Baker's death the townspeople moved it into town to keep an eye on him. And that flask in his back pocket was "cough medicine"...
Jane then arranged to have us over on Thursday to meet another cousin, Joan Warren, and to have a peek at family photos and the original Bible bought by Josiah Baker in Weatherford, Parker County TX, in 1878.
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New Mexico Family, April 2004
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Antioch Baptist Church
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Antioch Cenmetery gates
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James and Mary
Baker grave
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Grave of
Unknown Soldier
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M.G. Cottrell
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David Minton
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Baker cousin Joan Warren
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Baker cousin Jane Hester
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Josiah A. Baker's Bible
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Josiah A. Baker
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