Windsor, Anne 1805 - 1873

WINDSOR

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/13/2013 at 10:27:50

Iowa Plain Dealer December 5, 1873, P3 C4

WINDSOR—Nov. 17, of typhoid fever, after a sickness of about ten days, Mrs. ANNE WINDSOR, wife of Rev. J. W. WINDSOR, Pastor of the Congregational Church of this place, at the age of 68.

She was born May 3, 1805, in Petersfield, in the South of England, having for her mother a most devoted Christian woman. At the age of eighteen she made a profession of her faith in Christ, uniting with the Independent Church of Petersfield. She was married Feb. 1827 and in 1844, with her family moved into the then territory of Iowa. Entering shortly with her husband on the duties of home missionary labor, she heartily gave herself to endure its privations and its care; and with unmurmuring patience, and conscientious fidelity proved herself for nearly thirty years a help meet indeed in this unostentatious sphere of Christian toil.

More that forty-six years bore witness to her utmost devotion as a wife; while to her children she was a mother most tender, self-sacrificing to the last, pure of counsel and with the nicest regard for the right even in matters that might seem to some almost insignificant.

As a Christian she was not of the demonstrative type. The influence of her early years, together with her natural shrinking from notice, combined to mould her Christian experience after a quiet and contemplative order. Never ashamed of her Savior, her life was yet “hid with Christ in God.” She delighted in quiet reading of the Scriptures, and in devout meditations. She was a Mary that shrank from the bustle of the world, seeking rather to sit at the Savior’s feet and learn of him.

In all domestic industry she was most untiring, looking “well to the ways of her household” and never eating the “bread of idleness.” Yet was she ever afraid others would overdo for her. It was a characteristic abiding to the end. When almost past speech she uttered her fears that the watchers by her side would get too tired. Some portions of her sickness was attended with considerable suffering, but no complaints passed her lips even in hours of delirium. With faltering speech, she bade her husband and children that were present good bye. Not forgetting the two absent ones, and remembering even the grand children of whom she leaves seventeen, expressing her desires in their behalf. She spoke of her departure as “going home” and “longed to be at rest.”

Having relieved her heart towards husband and children, she seemed to feel that all was done and surrendered herself to death. For the last twelve hours she had little or no distress, and gradually sank till as a dying taper life went gently out. Of the loss to her household there is no need of speaking. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness.” But “Her children arise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her.” – Keosaqua{sp} Republican.