Price, Sarah Filetta (Stewart) 1844 - 1925

PRICE, STEWART, PHINNEY

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 10/24/2020 at 11:42:52

Elkader Register, Thur., 08 Oct. 1925.

Mrs. R. E. Price died at her home in Elkader, Sunday morning, October 4th, 1925, at 8:00 o'clock. The end of a long and useful life came quietly as a relief to the pain she had suffered for months.

Sarah Filetta Stewart was born near Richmond, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, July 5, 1844, the daughter of Ezra W. Stewart and Laura Stewart, nee Phinney. When about three years old the family removed to Wisconsin and in 1853 to Highland twp., Clayton County, Iowa. In 1859 the family took up its residence in Elkader, where she has since resided. On Oct. 16, 1866, she was married to Realto E. Price who survives her. To them three children were born, Valmah T., Jimmy R. and Stewart R. Jimmy died in 1877 at 5 years of age. The others survive her.

Mrs. Price often related incidents of their trip by wagon from eastern Wisconsin to the Mississippi, ferrying that stream at Clayton, Iowa, and driving their cattle through Elkader to Highland twp. There were few people in the neighborhood. They erected a log house beside the spring on what is now the Theo. Torkelson farm. This house was torn down within the last half dozen years. In her later years it was one of her pleasures to visit this scene of her first Iowa home.

While living there she used to walk through the timber, where Albert Larson now lives, going to and from school. One winter this timber contained a large number of deer and she had to run from tree to tree to avoid attack from the stags. This was prior to the winter of 1856 for that was "the year of the deep snow" a time when men with clubs killed thousands of deer caught in the heavily crusted snow, for since then deer have been infrequently seen.

She used to say she "had never been a girl for at 14 she put up her hair and let down her skirts and became a teacher." In those days many staunch young men and women recently arrived from beyond the sea entered her classes. For these she entertained a deep interest in the years that followed and many addressed her as teacher. Then after several years of District School experience she taught in Elkader 1864-65-66.

David Horn, Dan Gleason, John Powell, F. G. Leibrock, James and John McLaughlin were among her pupils.

Mrs. Price was ever a student and in the eighties she took up a four year Chautauqua Course and pursued it to a diploma. She had long been a reader of Shakespear's plays and for years met once a week with some friend to read and study that dramatist. Later she was a member of a Shakespeare Club and pursued the work with renewed interest. Few among us had so thorough and familiar a knowledge of his work as she.

Her home was always open to friends and became home to her father for twenty-four years, her sister-in-law for thirty-two years, her sister and nephew during protracted illness and to the faithful employee in her declining years. She was a pioneer in suffrage and temperance work, yet bore no ill will toward those whose opinion differed from hers. When the battles were over she forgot all feeling and forgave others.

Funeral services were held Wednesday afternoon at the Congregational church at two o'clock, Rev. W. J. Warner officiating. Burial was on the family lot in the East Side cemetery.