JOSEPH A. SPARLING

SPARLING, SCHOTT, GARDNER, LIGHT, TRULLINGER

Posted By: Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert (email)
Date: 9/2/2002 at 19:36:58

Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa
Thursday, March 6, l924

JOSEPH A. SPARLING, son of HENRY W. and JOANNA SPARLING, was born July 9, l875, on a farm north of Garden Grove, and departed this life at the old family home in Garden Grove, February 22, l924, aged 48 years, 7 months and l3 days.

On December 27, l9l6, he was united in holy matrimony to MISS MAE CONNER. To this union one child, LYNN WESLEY, was born.

For three years after their marriage, MR. and MRS. SPARLING lived in Garden Grove and assisted in the care of the aged parents. In l9l9, MR. SPARLING purchased a farm south of Mt. Ayr and moved there in the fall of the same year. There was much work to be done and MR. SPARLING set eagerly to work with the result that he soon overtaxed his strength. In the following February he suffered a second attack of the influenza. From this attack MR. SPARLING emerged with badly shattered health.

He managed to carry on however, until the fall of l922, when he suffered a stroke of paralysis. After months of weakness he recovered sufficiently to remain on the farm and do a part of the work until last September when the family moved to Mt. Ayr to winter. The change did not help much and on February l3, they went to stay at the old home in Garden Grove. The new move here resumed to put new hope and elevation in MR. SPARLING. And just a few days before his death, he remarked that he thought he would get well enough to work by spring. But the end came suddenly and peacefully early on the morning of the twenty-second.

A strange coincidence is seen in the fact that his sister, MRS. MILLIE SCHOTT, of Amherst, Ohio, died just twelve hours before her brother and she was buried at the same time as MR. SPARLING.

The deceased is survived by his loving and sorrowing wife and little son, LYNN WESLEY, two sisters, MRS. CLARA GARDNER, of Sulphur, S.D. and MRS. EVA LIGHT, of Garden Grove, Iowa. He is also survived by an uncle, MR. JOSEPH TRULLINGER, of Humeston, Iowa. Besides these near relatives, he has many other more distant relatives and a host of old time friends and neighbors who mourn his untimely death.

As one who has known our departed brother rather intimately for the last seven years, we wish to record that we esteemed him highly and we considered him a faithful and patient son, a loving and considerate husband and father, and a good and obliging neighbor. The world is therefore poorer by his passing.

The funeral services were held at the home of MR. and MRS. C.H. LIGHT, on Sunday afternoon, conducted by the Rev. George W. Hall, a former Pastor, who was assisted by Rev. Young, Pastor of the Garden Grove M.E. Church.

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
List Administrator; Decatur County, Iowa GenWeb
"With permission from the Leon Journal Reporter"
August 3l, 2002