Mason, Alexander 1824-1893

MASON, SIMPSON, MC GUGIN, EVANS

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/25/2006 at 14:46:17

ANOTHER SUDDEN DEATH. – Last Wednesday the news came by wire from Washington, Iowa, that Alexander Mason was dead.

On Thursday Mrs. Mason, accompanied by her sister, Mrs. McGugin and Rev. Mr. McJunkin, arrived with the body, and the facts were learned, viz: That on Wednesday morning, June 14th, as Mr. Mason was returning from the postoffice and within a block of his own home he was seen to falter and finally sink to the ground. Those near him assisted him in rising, when he said, as he started on “I think I can go alone now,” but he only took a few steps till he sand, and when carried into Dr. Chilcoat’s and his wife and friends summoned, he peacefully sank to rest.

Mr. Mason was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, September 22nd, 1824, and was therefore in his sixty-ninth year. In April, 1851, he was married to Miss Mary A. Simson (sic-Simpson) who is still living, though their three children and two grand-children have long since passed away. One son in infancy – one at eight and Rose, the only daughter, at twenty-three.

Mr. Mason came to Iowa in 1864, and engaged in farming near Davenport. In 1871, having acquired a competency, he came to Grinnell in order to give his daughter, then his only living child, the benefit of a college education. Six years later, when the college work was done, she was married to Mr. Will Evans, of Newton.

Mr. and Mrs. Mason and the newly married couple all located in Newton, where for five years their cup of joy seemed to be constantly full. Two children were born in that home to nestle in the bosoms of the inmates and enshrine themselves in the affections of parents and grand-parents alike. But death came upon the scene, and suddenly broke the spell. A few short weeks of suffering and anxiety and the young mother and her two cherubs lay side by side in our city of the dead. Some years after, Mr. Evans and Miss Rose Simpson, the cousin of his former wife, were married and located in Kansas, where they still live. Mr. and Mrs. Mason lived in the old home until last fall when, on account of his failing health, they went to Washington, Iowa, in order to be near their relatives. Some three years ago Mr. Mason was attacked by rheumatism, which so affected his heart as to make life very uncertain-this, complicated with Bright’s Disease of the kidneys and intensified by a fall from a cherry tree in his own lot two years ago, accounts for his sudden death.

Mr. Mason united with the Presbyterian church in his youth, or early manhood – was for many years a ruling elder in it – was always loyal to his church and true to his convictions of duty.

His body was brought to the Presbyterian Parsonage on Thursday and the funeral held in the church on Friday, the pastor taking for his text, Prov. 14-32, “The righteous hath hope in his death.” The body was then laid beside the sleeping dust of his daughter and her children.

On Tuesday morning Mrs. Mason returned to the home in Washington, where, in her loneliness and sorrow she has the sympathy of her many friends in Newton. ~ The Newton (IA) Journal, Wednesday, June 21, 1893.