| 726 In 1883, when the committee appointed by General Conference went to Washington for the purpose of presenting a petition to Secretary Frelinghuysen regarding the letter of former Secretary Evarts, they asking that discrimination be made between the Reorganization and the Mormons of Utah, Bishop Blakeslee accompanied them and rendered valuable assistance in the performance of the duties of the committee. As an active member of the Board of Publication, and Bishop of the church, he spent the remainder of his life serving the church in these capacities with zeal and fidelity.
On the evening of September 20, 1890, he died at his home in Galien, Michigan, after a very short illness. The Saints' Herald, the church organ, said of him:
"The death of Bro. George A. Blakeslee takes from the ranks of the living one of the rarest and best of men. It is entirely needless to praise him further than to write: He will be missed in every circle in which he has moved as a noble man, a conscientious and efficient workman in whatever he put his time and efforts to accomplish. He has raised a noble family and goes to his rest as one prepared to live."
BISHOP E. L. KELLEY.
BY W. B. KELLEY.
Edmund Levi Kelley was born near Vienna, Illinois, November 17, 1844, where with his parents he lived for about ten years, when they emigrated to Mills County, Iowa. His great-grandparents, Richard Kelley and Maria Gibbs, emigrated to America in the year 1773, and their son Benjamin Franklin Kelley was married to Miss Nancy Yancey, daughter of Colonel Austin Yancey of North Carolina in the year 1805. A family of seven children was raised by them, one of whom, Richard Yancey Kelley, was the father of the subject of this sketch.
In the introduction of the gospel message by the Latter Day Saints in Johnson County, Illinois, the grandfather, Benjamin Kelley, opened his house for the use of the ministers
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