Kepler, Edward (1871-1893)

KEPLER, DURHAM

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 4/21/2017 at 18:30:55

Webster City Freeman, Webster City, Iowa, Wednesday, November 29, 1893

OBITUARY

"To the past go more dead faces
Every year.
As the loved leave vacant places
Every year;
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us,
In the evening dusk they greet us,
And to come to them entreat us,
Every year."

DIED - At Stanhope, Oct. 31, 1893, Edward, second son of Alfred and Eliza [Durham] Kepler, aged 22 years and 8 months.

A little more than a year ago, death entered into the home of these our friends and gathered its fairest flower in the person of the eldest daughter, Ida. Again, while their wounded hearts are still bleeding, there comes another call, and Edward, the second son, has gone to bear his sister company in the summer land. The oft-repeated injunction - "Meet me in Heaven," given by her dying lips, has been answered sooner than we had dreamed of, by one of the circle who gathered around her bed on that bright June evening.

Edward was born in Stanhope and all of the too brief life has been spent here. Though quiet and retiring in disposition, he had gathered around him a large circle of friends by whom he will be sadly missed. A kind-hearted and affectionate brother and son - he has left a vacant place in the home circle that can never again be filled; and on a loving, faithful mother's heart the loss falls heaviest. He had always enjoyed a fair degree of health until January last, when, taking a severe cold it terminated in a settled cough and unmistakable symptoms of consumption soon developed. Though all that could be done for his relief was done, yet he failed rapidly. To us the end came unexpectedly; but it found him not unprepared to meet it, and he expressed an unfaltering trust in his Redeemer. He has gone! One more familiar face has left us. One more step will tread the old familiar paths no more, and hearts who loved him stand face to face in the mystery of his taking off and wonder why God willed it so, but

"When the parted streams of life
Join beyond all jarring strife,
And the flowers that withered lay
Blossom in immortal gray;
When the voices hushed and dear
Thrill once more the raptured ear,
We shall feel and know and see
God knows better far than we."

The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Bateman of the Stanhope M.E. church, who preached the funeral discourse from Micah 2, 10 - "Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest."

[burial Lawn Hill Cemetery, rural Stanhope]