Lincoln Freedom Abernethy was born in Osage, Iowa, on May 5, 1861. He attended Northwestern University and graduated from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1896. He married Dora Pierce in 1889; she died in 1901 at age 38, leaving three children, aged three, five, and eight years old. Abernethy remarried in 1902 to Effie Newkirk and she assisted him in his work and in the raising of the children (Pauline, Willard, and Frances). Abernethy joined the Southwest Kansas Conference on trial in 1880 and was admitted into full membership in the Gulf Conference in 1892, serving in Louisiana until returning to his home conference in 1894. There, he served in eleven charges until retiring in 1927. He spent four years as a supply pastor before ceasing his active work, spending his final years "quietly and joyously" in his local Winfield church (Grace Church), "where his presence was always a benediction." Regarding his name, his memoir in the Southwest Kansas Conference minutes says, "Born at the beginning of the Civil War his parents named him 'Lincoln Freedom' and, as the course of history shows, named him better than they knew.... his voice was always raised to strike from men their shackles of ignorance and sin that they might be free indeed. Truly he lived his name.'" Abernethy died on February 10. 1937, and was laid to rest in Highland Cemetery, Winfield, Kansas.

Note written by Sarah St. John