HUMMEL, Francis V. 1868-1900

HUMMEL

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 10/10/2016 at 10:31:40

Passed Away

Last Sunday at noon was laid to rest the remains of one of Grundy Center's most pious and well beloved daughters, Fannie Hummel, after months of intense suffering from consumption. She was well known throughout the county and all will read of her death with a feeling of relief since health were impossible and she longed to go to meet her Savior, and yet the feeling of regret came to every one that she had to be taken in the prime of young womanhood when she had so many to love her and life was so full of promise and hope. We cannot question the wisdom of God and while we deplore her departure we can only trust in his promises for he knoweth best. To the bereaved and aged mother, the brothers and sister, and other relatives we can only add our word of sympathy to what has been said by their pastor, and commend them to the care and keeping of Him who searches the secret sorrows and pours the healing balm on every heart and gives the beloved peace.

For several years Fannie had been an invalid. She spent two years in Arizona and for a time she seemed to battle the disease but her friends looked on in sorrow and helplessness. They knew her end could not be far away. Last winter her brother, Dr. Chas. Hummel went south to be with her for a time. When he returned he put her into the sisterly care of her dear and near friend, Miss Fannie Raft of this city. From her hands the deceased received the good angel's ministering. Then the last sad homecoming was had on March 12. The family were overcome at sight of her frail and deathlike appearance. She immediately went to her bed--her own little bed--she said, from which she would never rise. She spoke of death and welcomed its approach. She was a great sufferer, such a sufferer that she prayed for the end. On last Friday evening, just as the sun was declining in the west she breathed her last, surrounded by the dear home ones and went to sleep the sleep of the innocent and just.

They laid her to rest in a casket of white velvet and robed her form in the spotless dress according to her dying request. The flowers were many and beautiful. They were sent from friends, relatives and brothers, expressing the love and devotion her eyes could no longer see and her ears no longer hear. At 10 o'clock her remains were carried to the Catholic church where mass was held, after which Father Hogan pronounced a tender and eulogistic oration over her remains. He called attention to the uncertainty of life that is no more than a dream. As bubbles our lives go out in apparent nothingness. The philosophy of unbelief says there is no God, and the unbeliever drifts out on the boundless ocean of sorrow without hope and goes to meet his judge, who by the very laws that rule the universe, must consign him to punishment. But for the soul of the just death has no terrors. Faith in a risen Savior removes the gloom of the tomb. Without that Savior and the promises he gives, we would not find words sufficient to express our misfortunes. He recalled the words of the deceased and told how often she had expressed her faith and was sure that Jesus would receive her for her faithfulness in the few things of life and make her ruler over the many things in His kingdom. He comforted the bereaved friends with words of consolation and hope. A large concourse of sympathizing friends followed the remains to the grave.

Miss Francis V. Hummel was born in Baden, Germany, March 12, 1868. She came with her parents to this country in 1874 and located at Cedar Falls where the family remained about a year and a half and from there they moved to Parkersburg. They remained there a short time and from thence removed to Steamboat Rock, and from that place to Morrison, where the father of the deceased died in 1882, and together with her mother and other members of the family she came to Grundy Center where she resided until her death which occurred May 11, 1900. She learned the dressmaker's trade of Mrs. E. W. Ellis of this city and was one of the best artists in her line that we have ever had here. Eventually her health failed her and she was obliged to give up her occupation and seek relief in a warmer climate. She leaves to mourn her departure, her aged mother, her sister, Mrs. Barbara Hummel, with whom she made her home many years, and her brothers, Charley, Joseph and Andrew Hummel.

--The Grundy Republican (Grundy Center, Iowa), 17 May 1900, pg 4