LJUBISICH (LOVELY) CLAN

By Adam S. Eterovich

Marko Lovely voted in 1851 at Mobile, Alabama prior to coming to California. He was in business in San Francisco during the 1850’s and first appeared in Virginia City, Nevada at the E/S of B near Union Street in 1862 being listed in the Business Directory as Gluibisich. He operated the Silver Age Saloon at the corner of Union and C Street in Virginia City in 1863. He was a member of the Virginia City Fire Engine Company No. 1 in 1867 and was an American citizen. He was interested in various mining ventures and business interests throughout Nevada. In 1870 the Federal Census indicates he had a wife, Margaret from Pennsylvania, aged 19. Marko was related by marriage to the Medin family and following letter written by a grandson to a Medin sheds further light upon this Virginia City pioneer:

August 21st, 1965

Dear Grace (Medin)

It was good hearing from you, and learning all those interesting things about your family. No, I am not of the Medin “clan.” Our great-grandfather was Anthony Thornton, and our grandmothers, Sarah and Margaret Thornton, were sisters. My grandmother was born in Liverpool, England, presumably during the “Famine” in Ireland. We never could figure our how she could be sixteen at the time of her marriage. Your grandmother invited her to spend a vacation with her in Virginia City, and she was about to leave Burlington, Iowa, where they were then living, by overland stage, when her father read that the Indians had waylaid a stagecoach and there were no survivors. So Maggie went to New Orleans where she embarked on a trip around the Horn that lasted a couple of months. During the trip a handsome Englishman became very fond of her and wrote to her insistently after the trip, but she never received the letters. Your grandma discretely destroyed them, and confessed so doing years later after her sister was safely wed to the mad whom she had selected for her as the most eligible bachelor in Virginia City- Mark Lovely (originally Ljubisich), a good friend of Marco Medin and a fellow Slavonian, from Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) Dalmatia. Grandpa was then reportedly worth a fortune. He was old enough to be Maggie’s father, but they were happily married for nearly fifty ears. He told of taking his bride to Piper’s Opera and all heads turned in admiration when the petite blonde in white with a crimson-lined white cape entered escorted by her tall husband. I remember seeing “Aunt Sally” only once as a small boy. Mother says that she had a charming and rather “grand” manner. Soo-- I wonder if anyone will be relating anecdotes about us a hundred years from now! I wish I could interview my grandparents and get some points straight. But I’ll have Eternity to do that. It will be nice to pass the timelessness that way. (Marco, your uncle, and George, my uncle had the same blue blue eyes as Maggie.)

Mark

Antonio Lovely was in Virginia City as a miner in 1870 and was farming in Tuolumne, California in 1890; Mitchell Lovely had a saloon at Hamilton in 1870 and was farming at Tuolumne, California in 1884. They both were American citizens. Nikola Lovely was a saloon owner in Virginia City during the 1870’s and died at the age of 76 in 1926 and was buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, San Francisco. (1)

1. Virginia City Business Directories for 1875, 1862, and 1864.