Mary Jane Humphrey 1840-1922

HUMPHREY, SHEPPAERD, JENNINGS, PIERCE, STOUT, RYDER, ADAMS, BROADWOOD

Posted By: Beverly Gerdts (email)
Date: 10/2/2023 at 06:41:59

Columbus Gazette, Columbus Junction, IA
Thursday, April 27, 1922
Page 8

Mary Jane Humphrey, second child of James and Nancy Humphrey was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, January 6, 1840 and departed from this life at her home in east Morning Sun, April 20, 1922, age 82 years, 3 months and 14 days. She was one of those who overcame the labor and privations of pioneer life on the prairies. With her parents and elder brother and a company of relatives who came to Iowa via wagon route in the autumn of 1854. The first winter was spent in Grandview, the next summer was spent on a farm south of Cairo while preparations were made for building a permanent home out near Mid Prairie. Throughout her entire life her chief place of residence has been in Louisa county and in Morning Sun for 29 years. She was for a few years a student at Howe's Academy at Mt. Pleasant. Her chosen vocation in life was teaching.

She has faced the cold and blizzards of the prairies; the hard times and sorrows of a Civil War, but at last she can say in the words of the old hymn, "The Toils of the Road will seem Nothing, When I Get to the end of the way." She was the second child in a family of twelve children, next to the oldest and yet she has had to see the Death Angle came to father and mother and every brother and sister (with the exception of J. R. Humphrey who has made his home with her for a number of years.) Mrs. Almeda Shepperd of Warsaw, Illinois, to whom she gave a home in childhood, also mourns her passing.

About the age of twenty years she united with the First Presbyterian church of Winfield, Iowa, this membership was later transferred to the First Presbyterian church of Morning Sun. She leaves to mourn her loss one brother, J. R. Humphrey of Morning Sun, three sister-in-laws, Mrs. Thomas Humphrey of San Francisco, California; Mrs. William Humphrey of St. Clairsville, Ohio; Mrs. Steve Humphrey of Winfield, Iowa and the following nieces and nephews: Mrs. Olive Jennings of Columbus Junction, Iowa; James and William Humphrey of Winfield; Reese Pierce of Decatur, Illinois; William Pierce of Yuma, Arizona; Letha Humphrey of New York city, Ross and Earl Humphrey and Mrs. Alice Stout, of Portland, Oregon; Mrs. Maude Ryder and Mrs. Mae Adams of St. Clairville, Ohio, Mrs. Ola Broadwood and Oral Humphrey of San Francisco, Calif. Interment will be at the Oakland cemetery Saturday April 22, 1922 after services at the Presbyterian church in Morning Sun.