Margaret E. Lovejoy
Margaret E. Lovejoy, 91, the wife of the late Rev. John A. Lovejoy, died Aug. 22, 2018, at the Homewood at Plum Creek Retirement Community in Hanover, Pa. Funeral services were held Sept. 1 at the First United Methodist Church, 200 Frederick St. in Hanover.
Margaret Elizabeth Hummer was born May 20, 1927, in Baltimore, the daughter of James E. and Catherine Wrightson Hummer. She was a graduate of Bel Air High School and soon after married John Andrew Lovejoy, a World War II Navy veteran. They had three children who survive.
She was a bookkeeper and financially helped her husband while he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1950 from Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky. She supported him as he pursued graduate studies at the University of Kentucky and Wesley Theological Seminary, then located in Westminster. In 1954, he was ordained an Elder in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church.
John Lovejoy served several churches during his ministerial career, and she was a partner in each. She sang in the choirs, taught Bible classes and was active in United Methodist Women. Those churches included Mount Vernon UMC in Hampden,1958-61; Arlington Methodist in Pikesville, 1961-64; and Orems Methodist in Middle River, 1964-1970. He was appointed to St. John’s of Hamilton until 1978, and Pleasant Hill UMC in Reisterstown, 1978-83. His latest church before retirement was Gatch Memorial UMC in Overlea. After retirement he was assistant pastor at Grace UMC in Aberdeen.
In 1976, after her last child went to school, Lovejoy became a bookkeeper-accountant at the old Maryland Bible Society office in downtown Baltimore, working in an office adjacent to the Rev. W. McCall “Mac” Roberts, the executive director. She retired in 1992.
“Margaret was a great minister’s wife and a full partner of any church (her husband) served in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church,” Roberts said.
One of her accomplishments was changing the BWC’s policy on pastors moving from church to church. “The policy my mother attacked was the circumstances that the furniture and appliances at a … parsonage in the Methodist Church, would be inherited by the incoming pastor and his family,” said her son, John Steven Lovejoy.
“This created chaos … became a financial problem,” he said. The change she effected allowed the minster’s family to keep the furniture and appliances at their current residence and move them to their new parish.
Lovejoy enjoyed cooking and entertaining family, friends and parishioners. “You did not turn down a chance to have dinner at Rev. Lovejoy’s home because the food would be the best, especially the desserts,” her son said. In addition to her son of Towson, she is survived by two daughters, Patricia Ann Hegberg of Hanover, Pa., and Susan Elizabeth Lovejoy of Lehighton, Pa.; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.