Duke Slavens (1840-1920)

Duke Slavens was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky on August 5, 1840. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1859. As a student, Slavens became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class.

Slavens returned to Kentucky and began preaching in the Methodist Episcopal Church while still nineteen. He served as a pastor in Illinois and Arkansas, then moved west in 1886 to join the Nebraska Conference. There, Slavens ministered at LaSalle St. Beatrice, Palmyra, Bennet, Rising City, and Adam. He was also the presiding elder of the York District in the conference and a member of the conference's Standing Committee on Freedman's Aid and Southern Education.

Slavens married Mary Taylor in 1861, and the couple had six children. He retired in 1903 and took up residence in Odell, Nebraska. In January 1920, Slavens and his wife joined their married daughter in the milder climate of Bay City, Texas. Suffering badly from rheumatism, Duke Slavens died in Bay City on September 14, 1920. He was eighty years old.