James, Amelia (Graybill) Kolker 1834 - 1922

JAMES, GRAYBILL, GRAYVILL, KOLKER, RIDDLESBARGER, WENTWORTH, KENYON, PEARCE

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 7/7/2020 at 12:48:06

Elkader Register, Thur., 14 Dec. 1922.

The veil was pushed asunder and she who was to bear the name Amelia was placed in the bosoms of Thomas and Amelia Grabvill [sic] October 4th, 1834, in the village of Richfield, Penn.

Only seven years of her life had passed in this nestling town when her parents and their family loaded their earthly treasures, and by canal, rivers, and stage coach wended their way into Iowa, which was then an uncultivated and unsettled territory.

It will be seventy-one years the 10th of this coming month that she gave her heart and hand in marriage to John G. Kolker. To them three children were born: Thomas, Edward and Ellen Mae, both of whom are deceased, and Mrs. S. K. Riddlesbarger of Mapleton, Iowa. Mr. Kolker passed from this life in 1858. In 1862 she married Charles James of Dubuque. Unto this union six children were given, four of whom survive, Ben W. James of Guttenberg, Iowa, Mrs. Lew Wentworth of Omaha, Neb., William James of Clayton Co., and Mrs. H. M. Kenyon of Waterloo, also a foster daughter, Mrs. Asa Pearce of La Mont, Alberta, Canada. In addition to these there survive a brother John Snyder Grayvill, the last of their family of nine children, of Cassville, Wis., fifteen grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren.

Mrs. James early in life united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. After the death of Mr. James, which occurred in 1895, she came in 1904 to make her home with her daughter, Mrs. Kenyon, in Waterloo. At that time she united with Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. Later she transferred her membership to the St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, of which she was a member till she joined the Church Triumphant.

Mrs. James possessed unusual physical energies; and the body persisted in remaining here for some time after the spirit longed to go home. This release was granted her on the morning of December 7th at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Kenyon, where she was most tenderly and unselfishly cared for.

Her girlhood days - that formative period when the soul is reaching up toward God and out toward mankind were spent amid the wild and beautiful hills and forests near the majestic Mississippi River where one can see the foot=prints of the Almighty; where one stands in awe and wonder trying to fathom the meaning of beauty, grandeur, and life, and love, and God.

What an ennobling and wholesome influence these works of the Infinite had upon her mind and spirit one can glean from the busy, unselfish, Christlike service she gave to this community in later years when her own home became the sanitarium for the sorrowing and suffering upon whom her shadow fell. Such a soul as was she could find no rest or peace till she rested in Him who says, "Come unto Me." Early in her years she inclined her heart unto the King of her life, and gave to Him the covenanted privilege of willing and doing through her what was his good pleasure toward a needy world. Her children, both of blood and spirit, will rise up and call her blessed.

My pen falters to write more. Her spirit, her deeds, her sympathies, her faith in humanity, and her faith in God are all writ in your memories and in the Lamb's book of life. No greater tribute can you give to the memory of her devoted life than to bare your shoulders for her mantle and to ask that a double portion of her spirit may possess you.

A short service was held Friday at 2:30 at the home of Mrs. H. M. Kenyon in charge of their pastor, the Rev. Charles Luce. The following day the funeral party accompanied the remains to Turkey River, where Rev. Luce preached the sermon in the church of her former years. The body was laid to rest in the old and favored City of the Departed, where were placed others of her own kin and generation.

(Note: Presented as published.)

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Death certificate names her father as Thomas Graybill.

Burial is in Goshen cemetery aka Turkey River cemetery