McCOY, Lavina 1808-1893

MCCOY, AYERS

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 11/3/2019 at 04:52:36

Obituary

Died, November 26, 1893, at the residence of Mr. Henry Landes in Felix township, Grundy county, Iowa, Mrs. Lavina A. McCoy, of catarrahal fever, aged 85 years and nine months.

Mrs. McCoy, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Ayers, was born in the town of Newark, Ohio, Feb. 20, 1808, and was married to Dr. John C. McCoy in that state in 1836. Her husband and family moved, in 1839, to Versailles in Central Missouri, where they resided until 1855 when the family removed to Utica, North Missouri. The Doctor died in 1873.

Mrs. McCoy united with the Methodist Episcopal church in Central Missouri and remained with the old church when the division occurred in that organization, notwithstanding the almost unanimous desertion of the church membership to the seceding branch known as the "Church-South." When the family removed to North Missouri, there being no old church organization at Utica, Mrs. McCoy presented her letter and was received into the Church South for a time, from which she withdrew because of the general disloyalty of its membership and joined the Congregationalists just organizing then at the close of the war.

Mrs. McCoy had her trying experiences in those days of unrest and wild work of the war; but she remained the same earnest christian and zealous Sabbath school worker throughout her whole active life. She was a school teacher for many years, a kind, wise and exemplary mother, and a model teacher, thinker and worker of the olden time.

Kind friends and her son ministered to her wants during her brief suffering ere she went to her coveted rest from earth and to her Thanksgiving in Heaven. She leaves two sons, all the children ever born to the family, one living in North Missouri; the other is our old county superintendent and surveyor, L. S. McCoy, of Hardin county.

She was laid away in the Vinton cemetery by kindly hands on the afternoon of Nov. 28th, Rev. Miller of Whitten officiating. Going with her christian hope, O, Death! where is thy sting? O, Grave! where is thy victory?

--The Grundy County Republican (Grundy Center, Iowa), 7 December 1893, pg 5