Blair, Mrs. Charles F. 1839-1912

BLAIR, BALMER, WICKERSHAM, MILLER

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/2/2010 at 12:33:24

Mrs. Charles F. Blair

The following obituary of Mrs. Charles F. Blair, mother of Mrs. John P. Balmer, Jr., living south of this city and whose death was chronicled in the Leader at the time is taken from the Keokuk (Iowa) Gate City where Mrs. Blair lived for many years.

On Sunday, the 5th inst., Mrs. Chas. F. Blair, a former resident of Keokuk, died at the home of her daughter, Annie, now Mrs. John Balmer, near Pontiac, Ill. Deceased was born in 1839, and at the time of her death had passed her seventy-third milestone. Mrs. Blair was a relative of the late E. H. Wickersham. The older people of Keokuk will remember deceased and her husband, Charles F. Blair, who after the war conducted a grocery store at Tenth and Main Streets. During the early seventies, Mr. Blair removed his business to Big Mound, this county, and during 1880, when the North road was put through moved his store to the railroad at Mt. Hamill and later went to Kansas to take up government land. About six years ago Mr. Blair passed away.

At the opening of the rebellion Mr. Blair enlisted and Mrs. Blair remained at home and bravely played the part of a soldier's wife. She joined in every effort to encourage the soldiers and to relieve the suffering and distress during those years so full of serious and terrible meaning, but which now are only a glorious and sacred memory. She joined hands with other local women in forming and maintaining every organization formed during those eventful years to keep alive the fires of patriotism and loyalty and to care for the sick and wounded soldiers. In this regard she emulated the example of Mrs. John A. Logan, Mary A. Livermore and our own beloved Mrs. Wittemeyer, who were veritable angels of mercy fifty years ago. Money had to the raised sewing had to be done and many delicacies had to be cooked and baked. The patriotic and benevolent women of that day were ever ready and even anxious to relieve distress and minister to the sorrowing dying and bereaved.

Mrs. Blair was a woman ambition, active, alert and made every day useful and worthy of her inborn energy.

Hundreds were assisted during sickness and death. Nothing stood in the way of her going to the home of pain and grief, where the shadow had fallen. Even strangers were not beyond the pale of her good Samaritan hand and heart. She was full of spirit and believed in doing things, and like most men and women of her temperament, she abhored pretense-abominated sham. This commendable trait in her character made some think her austere and proud. She was austere with negligence and shiftlessness. She was proud; but she was not vain. Her pride came from her self-respect, her dignity from good breeding.

All her life long this good woman was full of hope and courage, always facing the future bravely, under the most trying circumstances and untoward events; and this made her always active until some months ago, when her willing hands became unnerved by a stroke of paralysis, which rendered her an invalid and caused great suffering.

During her last illness she was tenderly cared for by her beloved daughter, Annie, at whose home she passed away as stated, on the fifth inst. And so this woman, who had on so many occasions been the angel of hope and love and had often smoothed the pillow of the dying, herself passed into rest. The brave spirit had passed beyond the purple of the hills as silently as the twilight falls at evening. She had led a worthy life and though she had suffered many storms yet it can be said of her that she was one
"Who through long days of labor
and night devoid of ease
Still heard in her soul the music
Of wonderful melodies"

The remains were brought to Mt. Hamil on the ninth inst. And were buried in the family lot at Sharon Cemetery. The surviving relatives are two daughters, Annie, the Mrs. John Balmer, Pontiac, Ill; Mary, the Mrs. Herbert Antone Miller, in Kansas; three sons, George R. Blair, Pratt, Kan.; John R. Blair, Osage, Okla.; William M. Blair, Ilo, Idaho; also seventeen grandchildren. ~ Newspaper unknown