YOUNG, Emma Lamb 1849-1926

YOUNG, LAMB, BEVIER, WARE, POOLE

Posted By: Michael Kearney (email)
Date: 6/22/2002 at 08:37:44

The Clinton Herald Friday June 4, 1926
Mrs. Emma Lamb Young, widow of William E. Young, passed away at 6 o'clock this morning at her home, 305 Seventh avenue, her death culminating an illness of two weeks' duration. Funeral services will be held at -- o'clock Monday afternoon at the late residence, with the Rev. J.M. Duer, pastor of the First Presbyterian church, officiating. Interment will be in Springdale cemetery. Mrs. Young, who was aged 76 years, 11 months and four days, was a member of the Clinton chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, and of the Clinton Woman's club. She was especially revered in Clinton because of her charitable contributions, her local philanthropies for public institutions, especially her gifts to the new Jane Lamb Memorial hospital, having been extremenly generous. Emma E. Lamb was born June 30, 1849, the daughter of Chancy and Jane Bevier Lamb, the former a pioneer lumber man of Clinton and owner and operator of the C. Lamb lumber yard and saw mills, later known as the C. Lamb & Sons mills upon the entry of two sons, Artemus and Lafayette Lamb, into the business. Born in Big Flats, N.Y., she came west and to Clinton with her parents in 1856. For a time before settling here, her father was engaged in farming near Argo-Fa in Illinois. She was married December 25, 1869, at the age of 20 years, to William E. Young, who was at that time a member of the firm of Young-Ewing, a grocery concern. He later became associated with Mrs. Young's father and brothers in the mills, entering their offices in 1879 in a responsible position, which he held until his death in 1907. She was the mother of one child, Grace, who was married to M.B. Poole of Chicago. She also preceded her mother in death, some few years ago. Mrs. Young is the last of a family of six children, Artemus, Lafayette, Augusta (Ware), Celeste and Merrette. She leaves no immediate relatives with the exception of a granddaughter, Miss Dorothy Poole, formerly of Chicago, now of Pasadena, Calif. Mrs. Young is known throughout Clinton as a donor to all worthy causes and has given, perhaps more than any one other person, donations for the benefit of local institutions and personal aid to many worthy young people of the city for furtherance of education. She gave the ground upon which the Carnegie library stands, built the nurses' home at Jane Lamb hospital and also presented a large sum of money to the hospital board at the time of the recent remodeling and extension of the building. These are only a few of the charitable acts of her life. Her benefactions to Jane Lamb hosptial alone are estimated at more than a quarter of a million dollars in the last ten years, while the total of her benevolences to other institutions and individuals has not been estimated. She was ever ready and gave liberally to worthy causes and to deserving and needy persons. Mrs. Young was associated with the First Presbyterian church and interested in its activities. She was a member of the Women's club and the Clinton chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, being herself a daughter of a daughter of the revolution, her grandfather on her mother's side of the family having been an American soldier in the Revolution. She was favored through life with a host of warm friends and acquaintances owing to her many commendable attributes and her passing will be mourned by the community at large. During the period of her critical illness and when word of her death was circulated about the city, numerous tributes to her memory as a woman of extraordinary charity were voiced. Mrs. H.W. Seaman, president of Jane Lamb hospital board of directors, speaking not only for herself but for the board as a whole, hearing of Mrs. Young's death said: "We shall certainly miss our friend and benefactor and greatly mourn her passing. She has always been a most dear friend and truly a good angel at Jane Lamb hospital where she not only built our nurses' home but also furnished funds at various times for additions to the building besides donating so much to the recent new addition. Of her we can truthfully say, she was always generously sweet and unassuming and truly interested in doing good for the benefit of others". "It was a most pleasing characteristic of Mrs. Young, that whenever she was thanked for some kind act or a donation of cash value, she took the attitude of belittling her own part in enterprises and showed only a joy in being able to give and do for others, rather than to take the stand that since she had helped financially, she should be considered first. It was for others always that she thought", Mrs. Seaman concluded. "As I think back thirty years of more in my connection with the hospital and other institutions", said E.M. Howes, who as chairman of the board of trustees of Jane Lamb Memorial Hospital association directed the improvements made possible by Mrs. Young's gift, "the sweet and lovely things that Mrs. Young has been continually doing for them come to my mind and I remember how many things it has been possible to do that could not have been done had it not been fo her assistance. "The include practically a new Jane Lamb hospital, then the nurses' home and constant improvements, year after year that have enabled the hospital to care for patients in a way it would not have been possible to do without her aid. And as I look back over my life I can reall many nice things the members of the Lamb family have been doing for Clinton." From Attorney F.W. Ellis, who has been closely associated with Mrs. Young in her legal and business affairs, The Herald is privileged to print the tribute that appears in an adjoining column. It is a voicing in one of all of the many tributes given utterance today in many quarters.
In Memoriam Emma Lamb Young (By F.W. Ellis) Death comes to every home in the land, cold, stern and inexorable. Neither the might of empires nor the power of wealth can stop its final triumph. It is, however, just as natural as birth and life. Some one has written, "Death knocks alike at the door of the palace and the cottage gate." This time His summons came to a quiet home where lived a dear old lady, whose name is a synonym for charity and kindness. Emma Lamb Young in the beautiful springtime, but in the autumn of life, has gone to her reward. "Her passing seemed but the fitting close to a harmonious and benignant life. As the inevitable feebleness of advancing years crept over her the ties binding her to earth were slowly and tenderly loosened and she drifted peacefully down the stream secure in the certaintly of reaching a safe harbor in the end." "But through the sun of her youth had long since set, the lovely afterglow with its own soft radiance kept an atmosphere of warmth and brightness always around her." Mrs. Young was blest with an unusual kind and sympathetic nature which drew friends about her, whose affection she retained. The trials of humanity, even the humble, had a strong apeal, and her beneficences poured forth in a stream of love and kindness. Her greatest happiness in life was helping others of whom she always thought first and of herself last. It is the noblest and most laudable distinction of the human family, frequently exercised but generally not known until such a rare character has gone into the great unknown. Her greatest wealth was in her care and thoughtfulness of others. Riches beyond measure she possessed in the memory of those who knew her, which neither mother rust can corrupt or destroy. "Many occasions come to all of us, in the ordinary paths of our life, in our home and by our firesides, wherein we may act as nably as if, all our life long, we led armies, sat in senates or visited beds of sickness and pain. Varying and almost every hour the occasions will come in which we can subdue our hearts to gentleness and patience, resign our own interests for another's advantage, speak words of kindness and of wisdom, raise the fallen, cheer the fainting and sick in spirit and soften and assuage the weariness and bitterness of their mortal lot. Theres is opportunity enough for these. They cannot be written on the tomb; but they will be written deep in the hearts of men, of friends, of children, of kindred, in the book of great account, and in their eternal influences on the great page of the Universe." Time passes and changes the envelope of humanity, but the thought of her we knew is not changed. Her open mind, warm heart and free hand multiplying her beneficences and goodness, live and blossom in the