Martha Maria Watkins Converse 1842-1909

CONVERSE, WATKINS, JONES, CRITTENDEN, BAGLEY, GAUGE, MONROE

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 2/18/2011 at 23:32:55

A Good Woman Gone
Mrs. P. S. Converse Died at Her Home Wednesday Morning
Funeral Held Saturday
Had Been Sick for Several Weeks and Died of Heart Trouble – Sixty-Seven Years of Age
After several weeks illness Mrs. P. S. Converse died of heart trouble Wednesday morning, June 23rd, at the family home on east Lincoln street. She was sixty-seven years of age at the time of her death and had been a resident of Estherville for seven years, coming here from Tama county where the Converse family had resided for many years. Deceased was a kind hearted and generous woman, always had a kind word for her friends and neighbors and will be greatly missed by the family and friends. The sad part of her death is the fact that Mr. Converse has been ill all during the sickness of Mrs. Converse and is now in a very critical condition and cannot linger more than a few days.

Mrs. W. A. Monroe, daughter of the deceased, has written the following obituary notice for her paper the Clarion Clipper:

“Mother is gone. Her tired body is at rest. The wrinkled face is smoothed with the touch of death; the toilworn hands are folded over the stilled heart and the stiffened figure is eloquent in its inanimate response. She was so tire. She wanted to go, she wanted to rest. Mother is gone, but her memory is revivified by a thousand tender recollections. Mother was only a woman. She was a motherly mother, a wifely wife, and a burden bearer for those she loved. There was no sacrifice so great she would not cheerfully make for the comfort and happiness of her family. There was no toil so wearing that she would not endure it for them. She was a mother in all the term implies; she was a woman in every sense of the word.

“Mother was simple in her thoughts, sympathetic in her life and God-like in her ministrations. She had no ambitions but to promote the happiness and well being of her husband and children. She realized her duties according to the dictates of mother love and that is the cream of religion – the very essence of life itself. She was soft, sensible, gentle and true, a woman devoid of selfishness and unrest, a woman busy and contented with her lot, free from envy, at peace with the world. The last remark she made to the writer was, ‘I wish I had have been a better mother,’ and as we look back over her life and think how she helped our father to raise to manhood and womanhood eleven children, we wonder how she could have done more. She will be laid to rest in the cemetery at Estherville tomorrow, beside the daughter who passed away a few years ago.

“Mother is gone in the body. Her spirit will ever dwell and abide in the hearts of those she loved and reared. No higher tribute can be paid her than to say that she was only a mother – only a woman.”

Martha Maria Watkins was born at Eastford, Conn., May 12, 1842, died June 23, 1909, aged sixty-seven years, one month, eleven days. October 9, 1859, she was married to P. S. Converse and eleven children were born to this union. Of these all but one are now living and most of them were at her bedside when she passed away. In 1867 they came to Iowa and located on a farm in Tama county, near Dysart, where they lived thirty-six years. In March, 1903, they sold their farm and came to Estherville.

She was mother of eleven children, grandmother of thirty-two children, and great grandmother of two children. She had planned on having all her children home in October to celebrate their golden wedding. The children now living are, Mrs. M. S. Crittenden, South Haven, Kan.; E. D. Converse, Estherville; Mrs. D. W. Bagley, Brook Park, Minn.; M. S. Converse, Peabody, Kan.; L. B. Converse, Windom, Minn.; Mrs. C. F. Gauge, Hudson, Ia.; Mrs. W. A. Monroe, Clarion, Ia.; Miss Clarissa Converse, Estherville, Ia.; F. W. Converse, Estherville, Ia.; P. K. Converse, Lanesboro, Ia. One daughter, Edith [Jones], died in July, 1903.

Funeral services were held at the home Saturday at two o’clock conducted by Rev. Campbell, assisted by Rev. Wasser, and in compliance with her wish the five sons and one son-in-law acted as pall bearers and carried their mother tenderly to her last resting place in Oak Hill cemetery. (Estherville Democrat, Estherville, IA, June 30, 1909)