Clarissa (Elliott) Welch (1931)

HAWKINS, IRWIN, MARSTON, WELCH

Posted By: Treva Patterson
Date: 9/22/2007 at 15:03:51

The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Thursday, October 8, 1931
Page 4

Death of Mrs. Clarisa Welch
Earlham Special-October 4

The funeral of Mrs. Welch who passed away Monday evening at the home of her son Mart Welch in Winterset was held Wednesday afternoon at the Methodist church in Dexter. Rev. Hester pastor of the Friends church in Earlham preached the funeral sermon. Music was furnished by a ladies quartette from Earlham. Burial was made in the Dexter cemetery. The following obituary was read.

Clarisa Elliott Welch, daughter of Martin Van Buren and Elizabeth Hawkins Welch, was born in Warren, Huntington County, Indiana, September 15th 1843 and departed this life September 28th, 1931 being 13 days past 88 years of age. On October 22, 1863 she was married to Albert S. Welch who passed to the great beyond August 11, 1910.

To this union were born five sons and three daughters. One son and two daughters died in infancy and Lue Bert was killed in an auto accident July 9th, 1925 near Dexter; Mart of Winterset; Mrs. Eudora Marston of Des Moines; Solon of Earlham and Will of Des Moines are the surviving children.

She has one sister living, Mrs. Ella Irwin of Colfax, Washington; eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

In the spring of 1867 she and her husband moved from Indiana to Des Moines and the next year moved to Dexter where they lived and made their home until the death of her husband. Since then Mrs. Welch has lived in the homes of her children.

It has been many years since the day of her birth. She witnessed many great changes. A transformation of a raw, sparsely settled community into a thickly settled, well developed commonwealth.

The development of highways, railways, buggies, autos, airships, the introduction of telegraphs, telephones and radios. The growth of education from the little red school house to consolidated grades and high schools, colleges and universities.

A marvelous age, the result of a marvelous people. Grandmother Welch, a product of this age developed into a great personality, a helpmate of which the Bible speaks, a great mother and a woman well loved and favored in her community.

In her early youth she became a member of the Church of Christ, then in 1897 she joined the Methodist church in Dexter and in this faith she died and "She came to her grave in full age, like a shock of corn cometh in its season."
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Coordinator's note: Numerous vital records show her maiden name to be "Elliott". First name on gravestone is "Clarissa".

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