Scott, Maria L. Doud

DOUD, HAYDEN, SCOTT

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 7/2/2022 at 10:53:43

Gleanings From The Past by Catharine Henderson
Lest We Forget
Once again as Memorial Day rolls around, our thoughts go back in memory to those happy days shared with others who have gone before. The American Legion, I.O.O.F. Woodmen, Redmen, Pocahontas, and other groups honor their former members by decorating their graves. Services are held at the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
Iowa can indeed be proud of the many men who have marched away to war, some never to return to their homes and loved ones. How proud these men would be to know that they are not forgotten.

Lines
Years for the brave and noble dead, A nation’s tears are poured today; Yet call they not the spirits fled Back to the loved and lifeless clay.
A nation weeps-but oh! The tears It drops for ye are not like ours, Who knew your worth in by-gone years, Who passed with you life’s happiest hours.
Yet when we seek your darkened homes, Where breaking hearts find no relief, The deepest pangs our hearts have known, See but the mockery of grief.
God pity them! – what lonely hours Will come with every dawning day, Where once a path all strewn with flowers, Stretched in the smiling future, lay.
We weep for them! Ye are at rest, Far off upon that blessed shore, There, where no war-cry thrills the beast
And never comes the battle’s roar.
All honor to our noble dead, Who gave their lives our land to save, They nobly lived, they bravely did – They fill a patriot’s honored grave.

The above lines were written by Mrs. M. L. Scott on the death of those who fell at the Battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862 during the Civil War. Their words are equally fitting for the honored dead of any war.

Mrs. M. L. Scott – A “Greencastle Girl”
Maria L. Doud was born in Tiogo County, Pa. June 26, 1828. Her parents were Philemen Henry and Louisa (Hayden) Doud. She was one of 10 children. The family moved to Jefferson County, Ohio in 1853.
Her first attempts at poetry were kept secret because many of her friends and acquaintances considered poets to be “crack-brained”.
While attending school in Richmond, Ohio, she started on a literary career, contributing articles to the seminary paper. Her old home town paper, “The Tioga County Agitator”, published some of her work under the pen name of “Ella Wade”. The “Lackawana Herald” published at Hyde Park, Pa., printed some of her articles.
When her parents moved to Polk County, Iowa in 1854, Maria remained in Ohio, teaching school. She was of a deeply religious nature and considered her teaching as the job God had given her to do. The following year, her health started failing, and she came to Iowa, following her family. They moved to Greencastle in 1855.
In October of 1862, Maria was married to Addison Scott. They moved to Ohio in 1866, but by the next year, her health had begun to deteriorate, and she longed for her family, so they moved back to Greencastle. Although they were not blessed with children, and her life was filled with much pain, theirs was a happy marriage. She died on August 26, 1870, aged 42 years, of consumption.
Friends had long asked her to publish her poetry, and a few years before her death, she reluctantly agreed. Her health prevented her from getting it ready to publish, and it was abandoned. After her death, someone who decided to remain anonymous, prepared the material, and a book of her poems, “Autumn Leaves”, was published by Mills and Company of Des Moines in 1880.
(Note from Catherine Henderson was omitted here.)
Source: The Jasper County Tribune (Colfax, IA); Thursday, May 24, 1979, page 10