Susan "Susie" Adelaide Bingham 1870-1893

BINGHAM

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 4/26/2012 at 19:59:49

Died – At her home in Estherville on Friday, July 21st, Susie A. Bingham, aged 23 years, 4 months and 20 days.

Death is at all times sad, but when it enters the unbroken circle of a happy home and takes therefrom the fairest flower, no words can tell the weight of sorrow that it leaves behind. The death of Susie came as a great shock to the many friends of the family in this city. She had but lately returned home from her school work in Tower, Minn., and a short visit to the world’s fair. About a week before her death she was taken with cramps and severe abdominal pains and a physician was called. The case went rapidly into intestinal peritonitis and resulted fatally Friday at 11 a.m. The parents, brothers and sisters are almost heartbroken over their loss, but they may be assured that the deepest sympathy of many friends has gone out to them in their great sorrow. Funeral services were held at the Presbyterian church at 6 o’clock Saturday evening, conducted by Rev. C. P.Boardman who spoke feelingly of the lovely character of his departed friend. Loving hands had bedecked the church and covered the casket with choice flowers, mute but eloquent offerings of hearts too full to speak. The remains were laid to rest in the West Hill [Oak Hill] cemetery.

To those who knew Susie Bingham well the remembrance of her brief but beautiful life will be a blessed memory. She was a such a good, wholesouled, happy, dutiful girl, always mindful of the wants of others, ever patient and cheerful, and generous to a fault. These were he characteristics when but a mere child and as she grew they grew with her. Susie cam to Emmet county in1880 and very soon afterward united with the church. She attended the common schools and later went to Plattville, Wis., graduating at the Normal school there in ’91. Since then she had been engaged in teaching, and was making wonderful advancements in school work. Although naturally of splendid physical strength incessant work and study had worn her down so that she became an easy victim to disease. In her last hours she was the same uncomplaining, cheering, self-denying girl, as in the glow of health. Her faith in the promise of Christ’s teachings, was sublime. Her life had ever been in his footsteps, and as she came nearer to the river there was no doubt, no fear, but a trusting faith that was in itself almost a sacrament. Her work here is not ended. The lesson of her life will be a model from which her girl friends may shape their own lives, and even if they do not succeed in full they cannot but be better and nobler women for their contact with her. (Emmet County Republican, Estherville, IA, July 27, 1893)

[First portion of article missing]
In the absence of the pastor, the Rev. C.P. Boardman, Congregational minister at Humboldt, preached a splendid sermon, a synopsis of which we append below. The floral designs were beautiful. A large wheel of roses with a broken spoke, an anchor, a pillow with the name “Susie” upon it in flowers, and many other flowers and plants that made a complete bower for the snow white casket to rest in. Theletters “C.E.” were made from white flowers and were suspended from the desk. A quartette composed of Miss Nellie Dawson, Nellie Lawrence, and Messrs. J.D. Wilson and Jas. Espeset, with Mrs. Espeset organist, rendered beautiful music. The pall bearers were Harry Doolittle, R.M. Barnhart, M.L. Archer, L.R. Woods, Burr Williams and G.W. Adams.

Remarks By Rev. C.P. Boardman
1 Cor. III.23 – “And ye are Christ’s.”
Sometimes we realize it, when in the great crisis of life we feel the hand of God in the providences of our own lives. Sometimes we forget it when we have our own way, when life is all sunshine and beauty. The words are climacteric. In the text and the context Paul is uniting earth and heaven, man and God. “All things are yours.” The sense of possession brings to a true, pure soul the sense of duty; - obligation to use our possessions, as a child feels the duty to use and use rightly the toys, clothing and school books which the parent gives. The child possesses the things but feels the duty to use his possessions. But the feeling of duty arising from the sense of possession is but the result of the deeper sense of duty arising from the sense of being, possessed by a higher power. The child belongs to the parent; hence the duty to use the parent’s gifts. The Christian belongs to Christ, hence the duty of using our possessions for him.

I have chosen this text because this sense of duty arising from the sense of belonging to Christ was so prominent a characteristic in the life of Susie A. Bingham. She was born in Grant county, Wisconsin, April 1st, 1870, and as a little child, a growing girl and in the opening, blossoming womanhood, all through the twenty-three years of her beautiful life, manifested this devotion to duty as a fruit of love to the Master whose she was, and whom she served. In 1880 she came with her parents to Emmet county, since which time, as daughter and sister in the family, as school girl, as student in the State Normal school of Plattville, Wis., and as teacher in the public schools of Lake Geneva, Wis., and Tower, Minn., wherever she went, the same beautiful testimony of duty, beautified by love into privilege as the evident working principle of her life comes from all with whom she came in contact.

“Ye are Christ’s” seems to have been the fundamental thought of her life. The test of all principles offered to us for our guidance through life, is the characters they produce and surely the principles which gave us such a life as hers, we well may study. I often think that the need of our young people today is a deeper sense and understanding of that word “duty.” For our [remainder missing.] (Northern Vindicator, Estherville, IA, July 27,1893)