Mrs. Abigail S. Marsh 1816-1892

KNOWLES, MARSH, MCDONALD, THORN, VAN CISE

Posted By: Volunteer
Date: 6/2/2006 at 22:34:16

“The Free Press“, Mount Pleasant, Iowa
25 February 1892

Death of Mrs. A. S. Marsh.

Another home has been darkened; another life whose influence has long been felt for good in this community has been removed. And again “The mourners go about the streets.”

In the early morning of February 22, 1892, the final change for which those who remain are never ready, however long it may have been expected, came to Mrs. Marsh. The low moaning of pain, the feverish restlessness of weeks were exchanged for the calm of death. “And He giveth His beloved sleep.” Our religious faith, our philosophy of life may accept all this, but lonely hearts will cry out for their own.

Mrs. Marsh had passed the boundary-line--the allotted age of three score and ten. She and her husband, Dr. W. S. Marsh, had passed the golden milestone of their fifty years of wedded life together, the hands of the busy house-mother had grown very thin and frail of late, but to see them folded for this last long sleep, to give up the true hearted wife, the loving mother, the faithful friend--we are never ready.

For thirty-seven years, with short intervals of absence, the home of Dr. and Mrs. Marsh has been not only a social centre in Mt. Pleasant, but a rallying place for all good and helpful activities, and Mrs. Marsh a valued helper and wise counsellor, with a brain quick to devise, and a hand skillful to execute. During the old tragic days of our war Mrs. Marsh was one of the first in Mt. Pleasant to respond to that thrill that stirred the women of the north to heroic activity in sanitary work. Many still among us will remember those days when women first learned to “work together for God and Home and Native Land.” Since then we have leaned upon Mrs. Marsh in many ways. She was especially active in all the early plans for establishing a public library, and served for some years as treasurer of the Library Association. She had strong attachment to the M. E. church, of which she and her husband have so long been faithful members. Mrs. Marsh came from sturdy New England stock. Her maiden name was Abigail S. Knowles. She was born October 28, 1816, in the town of Hampden, Maine, and with the exception of a year or two in Philadelphia, her school-girl life was spent in her native town. She was teaching when W. S. Dr. Marsh persuaded her to share his fortunes in the far-off land beyond the Mississippi. Her oldest brother, Dr. Freeman Knowles, had already settled at Keokuk, Iowa, and several other members of a marked family of brothers and sisters, the children of Capt. Amasa Knowles, were turning their faces westward. She was married in April, 1841. They soon came west, at first settling near West Point, in Lee county, Iowa. In 1855 they removed to Mt. Pleasant. Here their children have been reared and educated. Their youngest daughter Harriet died in childhood. Three children remain to mourn the loss of a tender, self-forgetful mother---Dr. Charles F. Marsh, Mr. Will Marsh and Mrs. Laura Van Cise, who left her home in Summis, New Jersey, some weeks since to minister to the dear mother.

The funeral service was held Wednesday afternoon, February 24th, at the house so long their home.

“The body of the home stands still upon the street.
But yet how changed within,--its heart has ceased to beat.
The mother was the heart, the mother and the wife,
Her smile was all its light, her movement all its life.
Now that she smiles no more, and does not lift her head,
The “house” may still remain, but, oh, the home is dead!”

Rev. Thorn officiated, assisted by Dr. McDonald. A large number of friends assembled to pay the last respects to one universally loved and respected. We may well believe that

“The feet that cease their walking here,
Tired of the way they’ve trod,
With strength renewed go traveling
The pathway up to God.

The hand whose patient fingers now
Have laid earth’s labor by,
With loving skill has taken up
Some higher ministry.

The eyes that give no longer back
The tender look of love,
Now, with a deathless gleam, drink in
God’s beauteous world above.”