McGuire Patrick

MCGUIRE

Posted By: Marilyn O'Connor (email)
Date: 3/19/2005 at 12:36:59

P. McGuire Passes Away
Death Angel takes One of Our Most Beloved Citizen
Aged 57 years.

Grief visited Mrs Ellen Weckler's home Monday August 6, coming at dinner time when people sit to eat with peace and thankfullness.
The angel of death had chosen that hour to call Pat McGuire to eternity, and thought the coming was not entirely unexpected, it was a thunderbolt to the household, swaying between hope and despair.

Pat was prepared in every sense for the call. He knew it was coming - his feelings spoke plainly to him. They were conveying hourly the sad message. Taking warning from them he lit the candle, searched his house and having put everything together in order as his faith demanded, he resigned himself to God's will, confident that the labors of life would be happily rewarded in the world beyond.

The spirit of secession was growing in the south when Mr. McQuire was born. Leaders were divided between the debating ability of Lincoln and Douglas.
On the following March Lincoln became president of the United States.
The baby in DuPage County, Ill, though a comtemporary, was not taking interest in these events then and they are merely background and as an infulence perhaps in the due setting of his mind in after life.

Pat McQuire's early years were spent as boys generally spend them. At nine years of age he had to seperate from his DuPage chums, bid goodbye to Illinois, and out in Story County meet the young Iowans of his own age, and form new acquaintances.
Here he shared in all boyish amusements.
It may be at this time too, he began to buy the classic authors and why he should buy them in preference to the novels of the day is a mystery, even though it furnishes the key to the future development of his mind.
He was more familiar with the writings of Shakespeare, Byron, Goldsmith and Longfellow.

He could feel with Poe as easily as he could attune his soul to the heroic poetry found in Poe's translations. He was certain that Lincoln was invincible in debate, and that the "Gettysburg speech" was the greatest masterpiece of oratory next to "The Sermon on the Mount."

Behind a disposition so retiring, so meek, one would not look for a mind so cultured, but when Pat McQuire chose to throw off the cloak as the writer often witnessed, then the hidden things of the mind came forth in great parade, decorated in their grandeur.
Yet with him literature was the handmaid of religion and was so treated.

The funeral was held Wednesday morning from St. Patrick's church and interment was made in the adjoining cemetery.
The pall bearers were John McKigney, John Hogan, Ed Mitchell, Mike Murphy, Peter Gorman and John Dougherty.

The bereaved relatives have the sympathy of the entire community in their hour of sorrow.

Card of Thanks

We wish to thank the many friends and neighbors who kindly assisted us during the illness and after the death of our beloved brother and uncle.
Mrs Ellen Weckler
and family