Dorcas Welsh Atherton

ATHERTON, WELSH, SPOONER, HAWKINS

Posted By: Mona Knight (email)
Date: 5/27/2009 at 18:28:25

Dorcas Welsh Atherton, born Sept 18, 1838, in Ohio; died March 30, 1923 at Centerville, Iowa.
Contributed by: Bob Beckman, Davenport, Iowa, in memory of his grandmother.

Mrs. Dorcas Atherton. Dorcas Smith Welsh was born in Roscoe, Coshockton county, Ohio, September 18, 1838. Her father, Rev. William Welsh, was a pioneer Methodist circuit rider. He preached in Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Her mother was Lydia Pyle-Welsh. When she was four years old her mother died. Soon after this the family moved to Iowa, settling in Charleston, Lee county. She grew to young womanhood, was educated, later taught school and was united in marriage to Amos Alva Atherton in 1861. In 1865 they moved to an eight-acre farm four miles west of Cincinnati, Iowa, where five children were born to them, two of whom died in infancy. She is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Edith Spooner of Grinnell, Iowa; Mrs. Jennie Hawkins of Centerville, Iowa; and by one son, Harlan, of Peoria, Ill. Their home, west of Cincinnati, was the itinerant Methodist preacher for many years. When the new man came he would put up with Brother and Sister Atherton and when he left the charge the Atherton home was last stopping place before he left. It was the usual custom in this home to dinner with them and on to the afternoon appointment and many times to the evening appointment. Owing to the failing health of her husband, they moved to Cincinnati in 1870 and entered the mercantile business under the firm name of Holbrook & Atherton, the two men having married sisters. After a number of years, Solomon Holbrook sold out his interest to Mr. Atherton. At this time the property on the west side of the public square was purchased and is still owned by the family. For thirty-six years this store was one of the conspicuous places of business in that section of the county. After the death of her husband in 1906, Mrs. Atherton purchased property in Centerville and moved into the city. She made the city her home until the time of her death, which occurred on March 30, 1923, at 6:10 o’clock p.m. in the eighty-fifth year of her age. Mrs. Atherton was a constant worker in the church of her choice, in the days of her strength. No task for the good of the church challenged her and her good husband that they did not meet it with earnest endeavor to do their best for the Master. She helped especially in raising subscriptions for the church at Cicinnati which has been recently replaced by the newly erected structure. She was devoted to God and to his service and found much of the chiefest delight of her life in His service. Behind her is a life of rare fidelity and usefulness and behind the memory of her is the memory of that fidelity and real consciousness of her usefulness. Like the fruit ripened upon the branch and thus giving to the world the finished produce to bless it, so her life rounded out to a finish, had developed until the finished fruit hung upon the bough and it took just the last touch to send the ripened fruit to the everlasting garner. As the sun rises up, passes through the circle of the sky to its going down, and when it is set and the shadows of the night begin to drop about us we feel the sense of perfectness and of a finished day, so do we today feel the sense of the really finished fabric of her life, and the sting of death is really gone.

She transferred her membership to the First Methodist church, March 21, 1920. As it is checked off the roll on earth it is with great joy we think of it being emblazoned upon the Lamb’s Book of Life. The funeral services were held from her late residence on South Sixteenth Street Sunday afternoon at 2:30. Messrs Ralph Packard, Harry Taylor and Miss Madge Dale and Mrs. L.J. Allen furnished the music. Dr. Thomas Osborn conducted the services and the interment took place at the Cincinnati cemetery.