Mary Forney Eggleston, 1849-1890

EGGLESTON, FORNEY

Posted By: Leslie W. Saint (email)
Date: 1/4/2014 at 17:39:06

Burlington Hawk Eye January 18, 1890, p. 3

In Memoriam.

After long years of patient suffering from the slow depletion of cancer, Mrs. Mary Forney Eggleston, wife of Mr. Seth Eggleston, general adjuster of the Burlington Insurance company, passed to her eternal rest yesterday afternoon at 3:45, in the home of her parents, Mr. James M. and Mrs. Sarah Forney, of this city. She died surrounded by all the members of the family save one, her brother John, and conscious to the last of their loving, sorrowing presence. Her death is a bitter bereavement to her devoted husband and son, to whom she had always been the ideal wife and mother, as well as to the father, mother, brother and sisters who loved her so well. And to large number of friends who knew and precipitated the gentle, loving nature and the fine impulses of her pure soul, the announcement of Mary Eggleeton's demise will come with sad import She as of a peculiarly amiable disposition that attracted and retained the friendship and esteem of all who gained her acquaintance.

Mrs. Eggleston was born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1849. Her parents came to Burlington two years later and here she grew up into womanhood. November 1, 1876, she was married to Mr. Beth Eggleston, of this city. Two children were born to them, one a little girl who died at birth, the other a son, Roy Eggleston, born April 27, 1878, and now in his twelfth year. The malady, which yesterday resulted in her death, began to developed some seven years ago, although previous to that time and just about the period of her marriage, the was threatened with pulmonry trouble. Upon the first appearsnce of the cancer, the best medical skill was employed and then commenced the fight for life which was so bravely maintained up to the last. In the fall of 1883 Mr. Eggleston took his wife to Kansas in the vain hope that the change of climate would benefit her condition. During the next two years the surgeon's knife was applied, but the malady was obstinate and recurrent. In 1887 resort was had to the highest medical authorities of Chicago, without permanent improvement. The next year Mrs. Eggleston went to Boston and in 1889, after returning home no better in health again sought expert medical advice in Chicago, Boston and Nantucket. But no treatment availed. The disease resisted all the methods brought to bear upon it by the most pronounced medical kill obtainable, and in September, last year, Mrs. Eggleston returned to her parental home here, much reduced. One more effort she made a few weeks after an another visit to her Chicago phycians, which proved equally fruitless with the rest, and she came back to await with true Christian fortitude the end which even the most sanguine hope of
watchful affection recognized as inevitable and near at hand. In her long struggle for victory over the grim foe which besieged her life, she never lost her courage and yielded only when exhausted strength gave the battle to her relentless adversary.

Mrs. Eggleston was a true type of the earnest, quiet Christian. Of an intensely religious nature, her faith and works were absolutely devoid of ostentation and she wrought the will of the master, as she divined it, in humble sincerity of her heart and purpose. She was received into the membership of the First M. E. church of this city, but subsequently transferred to the church in Topeka, Kansas, where her husband established their home in 1884 and which she left for the last time May 17,1888. Besides her husband and son, her aged parents, one brother and hree younger sisters, survive her. Her brother, Mr. John H. Forney, who is superintendent of the Buffington Wheel works at Wickliffe, Kentucky, was the only one absent at her death bed, and he is now on his way here to attend the funeral, which will be held from the family residence, southwest corner fourth and Cedar streets, to-morrow Sunday, afternoon, at two o'clock.