Johanna Carroll Walsh 1832 - 1912

WALSH, CARROLL, FAESSLER, GALLAGHER, MAHER, OKANE, DEMPSEY, PESTON

Posted By: Michael J. Kearney (email)
Date: 2/10/2008 at 19:04:40

The Clinton Herald Monday December 16, 1912 p. 7 Mrs. Anthony Walsh, 340 Third avenue, passed away early Sunday morning at the family home, with all members of her family at her bedside, her death being the result of a paralytic stroke suffered Thursday. Funeral services will be held at 10 o'clock Tuesday morning at St. Patrick's church. As kindly and lovable a woman known, passed away in Clinton with the death of Mrs. Walsh, mother of the Walsh families of Clinton, Davenport and Burlington. Mrs. Walsh had such a beautiful personality that the news of her paralytic stroke Thursday caused hundreds of aching hearts, and family and friends kept hoping against hope that medical science, in spite of her eighty years, could save her from the "silent reaper". But the peace she loved and enjoyed so much in life was granted also in death, for she went to the great beyond without recovery of consciousness passing from the sleep of life to the sleep of death without a murmur of pain. Her's was a rare type of womanhood; in her makeup nature seemed trying to outdo herself by pouring into one creature all the attributes of ---- perfection. She was gentle as a child yet in matters of principle had a will of iron. She was ambitious for independence and the respect of the world yet sweetly retiring and noble in every thought and action. She was wonderful in her unselfishness, her great heart was so filled with love for all her fellow creatures that there was no room there for any form of unkindness. She had an abhorrence of wrong in every shape, yet had only forgiveness and ready sympathy for the wrongdoer. She was deeply religious, uniting a zeal for perfect justice here, with an abiding unquestioning faith in another life for which this was but a preparation. Her especial joy was in her home-life and here she lavished the wealth of her affections, the warmth of which was met by a return of which was met by a return of feelings near to adoration. The old family home in Third avenue has been for years the scene of glad reunions, children, grandchildren and friends uniting in loving tenderness towards the worthy couple. Here in 1907, was celebrated the anniversary of their golden wedding, and in the present year their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. Love and peace, the dream of the mother, reigned supreme in the family circle - an example of perfect family life seldom equalled. Johanna Carroll Walsh was born at Sairane, Kings county, Ireland, in November 1832, and came to the United States in 1848, where her parents settled on a farm near Springfield, Ohio. They removed to Iowa in 1854, first in LeClaire and then to a farm near Pleasant Valley. Here she met Anthony Walsh to whom she was married in 1857 at St. Margaret's church in Davenport. The young couple lived for a year in Davenport, where Mr. Walsh had studied law, but in 1861, bought a farm near Low Moor, Clinton county, from which they removed to Clinton, in 1868. Here their twelve children were born, two of whom died in infancy and ten of which they reared and sent through school and university. Not content with this they took to their home two orphan nieces, now Sister Salome of Chicago and Mrs. Faessler of Princeton, and upon the death of Ella Walsh in 1897, soon followed by her husband, the two orphan grand-children, Harold and James Gallagher, found here too, a hospitable refuge. Besides the bereaved husband are left six sons, Edmund, Mark, James, Charles, Alfred and Eugene, two daugthers, Mrs. Charles Maher and Miss Clara Walsh and thirteen grandchildren, also two brothers, James Carroll of Clinton, John Carroll of Davenport, four sisters, Mrs. Mark O'Kane, Mrs. Sarah Dempsey, and Miss Margaret Carroll of Chicago, and Mrs. Anna Peston of Neepann, Canada.