| Leander Louis Clover | |
|---|---|
L. L. Clover in 1966 |
|
| Born | April 4, 1902 Curtis, Clark County Arkansas, USA |
| Died | May 3, 1975 (aged 73) Camden, Ouachita County Arkansas |
| Residence | Minden, Webster Parish Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Missionary Baptist Seminary of Little Rock, Arkansas |
| Occupation |
Missionary Baptist pastor; |
| Years active | 1920s-1975 |
| Spouse | Tommie Brooks Clover (married ca. 1923-1975, his death) |
| Children | No children |
Leander Louis Clover, known as L. L. Clover (April 4, 1902–May 3, 1975),[1] was an American Baptist Association clergyman who in 1952 established Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary in Minden, Louisiana. He founded and served as editor of the newsletter Missionary Baptist News for more than two decades.[2]
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Clover, who was of Choctaw descent, was born in rural Curtis in Clark County near Arkadelphia in southern Arkansas to Josiah Manley Clover (ca. 1859-1916) and the former Agnes Walton (born ca. 1882; date of death unavailable). Josiah Clover died when Leander was still thirteen. Leander also lost a younger brother, Joe Cole Clover, who died in 1906 at the age of two. Reared in Clark County, Clover attended public schools and subsequently received a Bachelor of Theology degree from Missionary Baptist Seminary in Little Rock, the successor to an earlier institution in Sheridan in Grant County, Arkansas. Clover was the pastor of five Missionary Baptist churches in Arkansas, including the New Prospect congregation in Colt in St. Francis County near the Mississippi River.[2]
In the latter half of 1948, Clover moved to Minden to succeed Julian Pope as the pastor of the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. In April 1950, Calvary opened a then new sanctuary on the Shreveport Road, and Clover preached the first services held there. The permastone structure, which then seated 450, cost $22,000.[3]
On September 26, 1957, Clover was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the former Eastern Baptist Seminary in Somerset in Pulaski County in southeastern Kentucky, which had been established by the evangelist I. K. Cross. On May 19, 1958, Clover obtained a Doctor of Theology degree from Texas Baptist Institute at Henderson, Texas.[2]
In 1951, Clover instituted Bible classes for Christian workers.[4] In 1952, he officially launched LMBIS with two students, then instructed from his own home.[5] Among the first graduates was Jimmy G. Tharpe, later the founder of Louisiana Baptist University and Theological Seminary, an Independent Baptist entity in Shreveport.[6]
Clover was LMBIS president for nineteen years and president-emeritus for the remainder of his life. As president, he established a print shop and the Missionary Baptist Bookstore. He launched and for more than a decade edited the Missionary Baptist News. He was succeeded as the Calvary pastor by Irvin Roshto, later of Lufkin and Vidor, Texas, who also subsequently followed Clover as the LMBIS president. The current long-time LMBIS president is another former Calvary Baptist pastor, Donald McCormick.[7]
Clover's books included the scholarly study, The Church: Her Origin, Purpose, Doctrine, and History[8] He also wrote Evil Spirits Intellectualism and Logic and Our King Is Coming. In the latter, Clover warns that the world is slowly becoming unconscious of sin and its detrimental effects: "Sin is a scavenger that preys on the souls of men. . . the sorrow-poisoned arrow that is producing heartache and tears ... the author and finisher of sickness and death . . . the barricade between God and man . . . the architect and builder of hell. The world will not be rid of sin and its disastrous results before the Lord comes to rule and reign."[9]
From 1956-1961, Clover worked closely with LMBIS dean A. T. Powers, a native Texan who like Clover had pastored several Arkansas congregations. In 1957, Powers became the second pastor of Eastside Missionary Baptist Church in Minden, originally a mission of Clover's Calvary congregation.[10]
In addition to his administrative and fund-raising roles, Clover taught courses in the philosophy of religion, ancient history, Bible analysis, and ethnology.[11] In 1966, the LMBIS yearbook The Key dedicated its first ever edition to Clover, citing the minister's "love for God, his sincere interest and concern for his fellow man, and his sacrificial giving of himself."[12] After leaving Calvary church, Clover was the interim pastor of Forbing Woods Missionary Baptist Church in south Shreveport. In 1972-1973, The Key reported thirty-three regular and twenty-one part-time students at LMBIS.[13]
Clover was an ectomorphic, bespectacled, red-haired, and ruddy-complexioned man.[14] After his initial retirement, the Clovers relocated to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, which is listed in the Social Security Death Index as his final residence, but they had returned to Minden, where he had resumed teaching at LMBIS for the last two years of his life. He died at the age of seventy-three in the home of Wilton Wager, then pastor of the Trinity Missionary Baptist Church in Camden, Arkansas, where Clover had been preaching weeklong revival services, a then customary practice in most Baptist churches.[15]
For fifty-two years until his death, Clover was married to the former Tommie Brooks (1905–2002), a native of Ellis County, Texas, near Dallas. The couple had no children.[16] Other than his wife, Clover's only survivor was a half-sister by his father's previous marriage, Mattie Lee Coleman (born 1891; date of death unknown). Mrs. Clover remained in Minden for the remaining twenty-seven years of her life. A devotee of exotic birds, she died at the age of ninety-seven in a Minden nursing home. The couple is interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden.[15]
LMBIS operated under Clover at 903 Shreveport Road in a separate facility across from the Calvary Church at 1000 Shreveport Road in Minden. In 1996, Calvary Church voted to relocate its facilities to 1400 Homer Road in the far eastern side of Minden. Construction began late in 2002, and the new facilities, including a modern LMBIS, building on Seminary Road were dedicated on November 2, 2003.[4] Numerous Missionary Baptist pastors in the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas region are LMBIS graduates, including Richard Derek Methvin (born 1960), the pastor since 1998 of Eastside church in Minden. A degree from the institute is unaccredited but recognized by all Missionary Baptist congregations within the denomination. [17]
The LMBIS yearbook The Key in its "In Memoriam" section in 1975 lauded the departed Clover’s "conservatism, determination, ability, and longsuffering that inspired and inaugurated a fortress of biblical truth in Minden." Clover wrote in the yearbook: "We are living in a world that is turning from doctrinal truths, rejecting the Bible, and forgetting about God. Therefore, I wish for each of you the power to think deeply and to respond nobly to the responsibilities that rest upon you."[18]