McClure, Jennie (McCafferty) (1833-1903)

MCCAFFERTY, MCCLURE, STEVENS

Posted By: Carl Malone (email)
Date: 4/17/2017 at 14:43:43

The Semi-Weekly Telegraph
Atlantic, Iowa
May 20, 1903

ANOTHER PIONEER GONE.

Mrs. Jennie McClure, wife of William W. McClure of Wiota, died at 8:40 o’clock Monday evening. Dissolution resulted from lagrippe, combined with old age. She had been in very poor health for the past three years, gradually growing weaker as time passed. Last Friday she became unconscious and remained so until Monday evening when she regained consciousness and told the family that she would soon pass to that bourne where suffering and pain are unknown. Owing to the fact that her condition seemed nearly as bad at various time before, it was not thought that she would pass away so soon; but at 8:40 the end came. The funeral will occur at 2 p.m. today. Rev. D. O. Phillips will conduct the services.

[Jennie McCafferty was born in Allen county, Ohio, Feb. 23, 1833. She grew to womanhood in that state, and was united in marriage to William McClure Dec. 15, 1853. With her husband and two children she started to the then famous Pike’s Peak country in 1859. The journey from Iowa City to this county was by stage, the railway extending no farther west than that place at the time. After arriving in this county where they had relatives, it was decided that she should remain while Mr. McClure continued to the Rocky Mountains. However, he went only as far westward as the eastern boundary of Colorado, then returned. Three years later Mr. McClure again started to Pike’s Peak, where he did well in a financial way. In the meantime the home place adjoining Wiota was purchased, and gradually by toil and thrift on the part of this pioneer couple converted from a tract of wild prairie to a pleasant homestead. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. McClure, two of whom passed away in early childhood; and the surviving four growing to useful manhood and womanhood under the tender care of earnest parents on the farm. A. J. McClure now resides in Texas, Mrs. Mary Stevens at Green River, Wyo., and W. A. McClure, at Valley Junction. The youngest son, Charles, remained on the farm, taking care of his aged parents.]

One of the saddest tasks that pen can perform is to chronicle the passing away of an early pioneer. To no human agency belongs so much genuine credit for the building up and civilizing of a wild, new country, as to the early settlers. Coming, as many did, from extremely pleasant surroundings and dearer home ties in the east, to a virgin section of wild western wantonness, where only the most forcible contact with hardship and privation could the country he transformed into any semblance of a home, these loyal, hardy people came and made from a desolate wilderness a grand country. Their discouragements, and heartaches, and tears are almost forgotten in the throbbing commercialism of the hurry-world. Soon too soon, the last remnant of the pioneers will live only in a memory that should be held most sacred. No story can contain a sweeter sentiment than that of the life of this woman who early in life cast her lot in a new country and raised to manhood and womanhood her little family, content to forego the ties of the eastern home and spend her remaining days hree [here]. It is indeed fitting that her life should extend over the allotted three score and ten. With the gathering of the evenings shadow—when silence reigned—when the toil of day was over—her toil was done--and in the presence of her loving companion through life, the gentle spirit passed to the Great Beyond.

NOTE FROM CONTRIBUTOR: Jennie McClure was born February 23, 1833 and died March 15, 1903

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