Elizabeth (Young) Leonard (1887)

LEONARD, WALDEN, YOUNG

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 11/2/2007 at 11:17:48

Winterset Madisonian and Chronicle
Thursday, July 28, 1887
Winterset, Iowa
Page 4

On Friday evening last, in the Christian hope, Mrs. Dr. Leonard passed quietly away, and thus we lose a most noble woman, one who always had a kindly heart, one who always sympathized with the sorrowing, one who always was ready in a quiet and an unassuming way to help those in need. With all our citizens we tender the doctor our sympathy in this his great bereavement.
________________________

Winterset Madisonian and Chronicle
Thursday, July 28, 1887
Winterset, Iowa
Page 4

The following is the biographical sketch of Mrs. Dr. Leonard which was read during the funeral service by the Rev. Dr. Robertson.

Elizabeth Young was born Sept. 4th, 1822, near Fredericktown, Ohio. She was the eldest daughter of E. P. and Sarah Bones Young, who were prominent members of the Presbyterian church of Fredricktown, Ohio. Her father was elected a ruling elder in that church when quite a young man. He continued to hold that office for a period of over forty years, most of that time in connection with the Fredericktown church and the Presbyterian church of Richland Center, Wisconsin.

In her childhood she was especially earnest and devoted as a Sabbath School scholar, and during her whole life she would frequently refer with joy to her old Sabbath School teacher, Miss Harriet Doolittle, and repeat hymns and passages of Scripture that she memorized under her teaching. During this time she learned the shorter catechism with an accuracy which enabled her ever afterwards to answer any of the questions with scarcely a moment's hesitation.

She united with the Presbyterian church of Fredericktown, Ohio, about 1841 or 1842, under the pastorate of the Rev. Simon Brown.

Dec. 5th, 1848, she was married to Dr. Wm. L. Leonard.

In the fall of 1859 she and her husband came to Winterset, Iowa, and soon identified themselves with the old school branch of the Presbyterian church of Winterset, which connection she has retained to the present time.

During the late war she spent nearly one year in connection with the hospitals of Davenport, Iowa, and Corinth, Miss., and the kind words and cordial greetings which she in after years received from many of their old soldiers attest how well she performed her work of love and mercy as day after day for months she passed through the long rows of hospital tents at Corinth, on either side of which were sick, wounded and dying soldiers. To one she would give a word of cheer and comfort, for another she would smooth the unkempt hair, for another she would prepare a delicate dish as only a woman's hand can do and as only a brave but sick soldier far from home and loved ones can fully appreciate, and for all she always had a genial smile.

During the last fifteen years of her life she has been a great sufferer from disease; three years of which time she was confined to her room and could only move around on an invalid chair, but during all these years of suffering and pain scarcely a murmur escaped her lips, and it was evident to those who were intimate with her that her Christian character was growing brighter and brighter every day as evidenced by her increased love for religious conversation and the very great interest she has within the last few months taken in the study of the Bible.

Some three weeks ago, at the tea table with her husband, a sister who had that evening with her husband, (Bishop Walden), come to visit her-she was stricken with paralysis. A few days before her death she read to her in Psalms and then in Revelations. After the verse which in describing the New Jerusalem says there should be no more pain there was read Mrs. Leonard repeated "no more pain" then came unconsciousness and then death, and these were her last words.

She died at 11 o'clock of the evening of July 22d, 1887.

Gravesite
 

Madison Obituaries maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen