Ida (Wilson) Griffin (1971)

GRIFFIN, WILSON, SMITH, GODBY, CONNOLY, GIST

Posted By: Linda Brittain (email)
Date: 2/24/2007 at 18:54:36

Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
June 1971

IDA WILSON GRIFFIN

Ida Wilson Griffin was born near Earlham, Iowa in the year Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Her parents were Christopher Wilson III and Rachel Smith Wilson.

She passed away at the age of 105 years and 8 months on June 14, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The service of memorial was held in the Earlham Friends church and conducted by the pastor John H. Baxter, on June 18, at 1:30 p.m.

Ida had one half-sister, Lilian Wilson Godby, and also a half-brother, Clarence Wilson, both of whom preceded her in death.

She was married to Oliver P. Griffin and to this union were born nine children. Six of these have preceded her in death and also her husband.

Truman Griffin, a son, lives in Virginia, Minnesota; Vivian, a son, lives in Butler, Pa.; and Carolyn Griffin Connoly, a daughter, lives in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Ida lived in the Earlham community until 1903, then removed to the East coast and spent her last days in Pittsburgh, Pa.

She has thirteen grandchildren, twenty great grandchildren and a number of great great grandchildren.

Relatives from Earlham are two nieces and a nephew: Dorothy Godby, Marjorie (Mrs. Justie) Gist of Green Forest, Arkansas, and Graham Wilson Godby. John Godby is a grandnephew.

Ida was a birthright Quaker and remained connected with the Friends church in Earlham all her life. She was the oldest member of the Earlham Friends and possibly the oldest member of all Quaker Meetings.

One stops to reflect of what has taken place in those 105 years that Ida Griffin lived. We see vast and varied developments: the automobile, the airplane, radio, TV, synthetics, antibiotics, air conditioning, central heating and cooling, rapid transportation and communication, and hybridization of plants, and developments too numerous to mention.

She lived in the eve of Pioneer Days and the dawn of modern technology and nuclear power. God gave her good days. She was a goodly woman in the Israel of God.

We pause to honor her life and thank God for the kind of a woman she was down through the years. We are richer and better for her having lived and leaving a better trail for us to follow.