Henry Snyder, 1895 Obituary

SNYDER

Posted By: David Reineke (email)
Date: 11/11/2008 at 22:50:07

I translated the following obituaries from Der Carroll Demokrat, a German-language newspaper published in Carroll, Iowa, between about 1874 and 1920. They were originally published on Friday, 15 March 1895. Any information in brackets or notes at the end are my own explanations. They read as follows:

Mount Carmel
Last Saturday morning Henry Snyder died a pious man. He was an early settler, and his remains were buried Thursday at the local cemetery with many people in attendance. The deceased was a Hollander and had only been sick with pulmonary fever for nine days. Our sympathies to the bereaved survivors.
……………………………………………..

[Carroll]
Henry Snyder died a pious man Saturday morning. The deceased had just passed his 57th year. He leaves behind a grieving widow and nine children, seven daughters and two sons. He enjoyed great popularity. As a devout Catholic, a dear and wise husband and father, a pleasant neighbor and friend, he gained the trust of all with whom he came in contact. It is a great consolation to the bereaved that the deceased, before he died, reached his hand out to everyone present and passed away with a prayer on his lips. May he rest in peace. Several of our residents attended the funeral of the above-named deceased in Mt. Carmel.

It is most painful for us to part from everything we hold dear. But the belief in the Resurrection and in eternal joy and righteousness eases our sadness and stills our pain. For every believing Christian, death loses its horror, because when he lives according to his beliefs and spends his last moments in accord with God’s laws, he knows and feels that he will be delivered from the valley of pain, trouble and sadness, and transported to a place of eternal joy and happiness.