Martha Fletcher (1834-1914)

FLETCHER, MEGEE

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/23/2009 at 12:21:08

Maquoketa Excelsior-Record
March 19, 1914

A Beautiful Life Ended.
Mrs. D. A. Fletcher, a Prominent Resident and Pioneer, Passed Away Saturday Evening.

Martha Ann Megee was born in Tennessee on the fourteenth day of February, 1834; she died at Maquoketa, Iowa, on the fourteenth day of March, 1914, exactly eighty years and one month later. She was married to Dean Adams Fletcher, near Winchester, Tenn. Dec. 26, 1854. He was the principal of an academy near Winchester in which she was a teacher, when they became acquainted, and the two currents of their lives met, and mingled, to flow together in an unbroken stream for nearly sixty years.

Her father was a Kentuckian of Scotch-Irish ancestry; her mother a Virginian. Her father was a mill builder, and constructed in the neighborhood of Winchester, one of the largest custom mills at that time in the South.

She was graduated from a female college at the age of nineteen, and was only twenty when she was married. Her husband was graduated from the University of Vermont in 1852, and almost immediately after their marriage he took his young bride back to the old home in Essex, Champlain. After a year spent in the study of law he came west, leaving his wife and baby, their only daughter, in Essex while he sought a new home in the new state of Iowa. He found that home in Maquoketa, sent for his family, built a home in the village, and from that day till death parted them, their life has been spent here. She with her husband united with the Congregational church in Maquoketa about the year 1857, and the two were at her death the two members in longest standing in that society. She was never in robust health. About 1877 she was threatened with tuberculosis, and was taken by her husband to Colorado Springs in the hope that the high altitude might restore her strength. A summer’s sojourn among the mountains, together with an unconquerable spirit and a faith that never for a moment lost its hold upon the Divine hand, wrought almost a miracle of healing, and she came home again refreshed and reinvigorated, to survive almost every one of the old friends of pioneer days. Five children were born to her, of whom her second, Willie, a boy of five years, died in 1862. Four survive her, and with her faithful husband, and a whole multitude of loving and devoted friends, lament her loss.

The Civil War swept over and ruined that part of the South in which her youth was spent. Her only brother was dead, the friends of her youth were scattered and lost, and she never returned to the Southland. She was a typical Southerner, and she brought with her to her Northern home a spirit so warm and cordial, so hospitable to friendship, so true and loyal, so filled with charity and love, that she conquered every heart that came within the circle of her influence. She sustained a serious accident about the year 1889, which made her a cripple for the remainder of her life; but instead of embittering her spirit, or causing despondency, it refined whatever of alloy there may have been in her soul into pure gold. She seemed then to enter upon a new and finer period of her life. Every friendship took on a higher value, every blessing became more precious, the world became more beautiful, and life more noble, and aspirations more of fulfillment.

She had a militant soul in a fragile body. Her outlook on life seemed to grow loftier and more serene with every passing year, and while her straight in recent years grew more and more delicate, no one ever noticed any weakening of the judgment, or any dulling of the mental vision, or any letting down of the splendid courage with which all her life long she faced every trial. Indeed, the foliage of her tree of life took on a richer coloring as the autumn grew on. It is one of the sweetest memories of her husband and children that she passed on before winter came. She died with every faculty in full power, with the consciousness of being upborne on the hearts of troops of friends, and with a childlike trust in the Divine Love that never knew a moment’s doubt or fear. She lifted the tapestry and passed into another room, into the nearer presence of the Heavenly Father.

“O Cross, that liftest up my head
I dare not ask to fly from thee:
I lay in dust Earth’s glory, dead,
And from the ground there blossoms, red,
Life that shall endless be.”
The following beautiful tribute is
From a life long friend, Mrs. Mary Anderson:
Why should we fear the pulseless rest that comes
When pain and toil their wearying work have done.
Like little children lay we down to sleep
Trusting a risen Lord our souls to keep.

A Friend’s Tribute.
So frail was she whom we now mourn, so frail, and yet so strong, that it would seem as though the fiber of her being was like unto a thread of purest gold, which though it does not possess the tensile strength of baser metals, can be beaten or stretched to fineness almost beyond human conception and yet remain unbroken and untarnished; so tried and yet so true that it would also seem as though she brought with her to the Northland enough of the sunshine of her far away Southland to keep her heart warm and her eyes alight with love and kindness, and at all times and under all circumstances she was ever ready to exemplify that undefinable Southern hospitality that we of the North can neither acquire or imitate. Nor did she wish to keep that bit of Southern sunshine for herself alone, but was always willing to share it with others and make bright spots upon the pathways of their lives. Neither has she taken it all with her, for some of it still remains to warm and gladden the hearts of those who knew her, with the memories of her many kind acts and goodly deeds. As one who knew her well, I can say that her presence always meant gladness and that those who knew her best, loved her the most, for her handshake meant a welcome, her smile meant happiness, her friendship was a treasure beyond price and her love a benediction. W. C.

Promoted.
Mrs. D. A. Fletcher, a shorter member of the Maquoketa W. C. T. U., answered the call: “Come up Higher” Saturday evening, March 14, after an illness of three days.

Mrs. Fletcher was elected president of the Union in August, 1888, and acted consecutively for a number of years. The meetings were held in her home, and it was due to her untiring persistency in the cause of temperance, that the organization did not lapse at one time.

In her death the W. C. T. U. has lost an ardent sympathizer and a loyal friend. Mrs. Fletcher was the mother of Mrs. Minnie Shepard, an active member of our union.

Mrs. Shepard and her aged father have our tenderest sympathy in their loss. Committee