Sylvester Clifton (1919)

CLIFTON, DEARDORFF, MACKEY, MCGUIRE

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson
Date: 3/15/2010 at 17:16:51

The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Wednesday, September 19, 1919
Page 7

Mortuary

Sylvester Clifton, son of Benoni and Jane Clifton, was born September 23, 1834, near Leesburg, Fayette county, Ohio and died September 3, 1919 near East Peru, Iowa.

He was the third child in a family of ten children reared in this home. At the age of fourteen he was left an orphan and during the seven years intervening between that time and his marriage, he worked by the year on a farm owned by two different men.

He was united in marriage to Miss Mariah Mackey on Oct. 1, 1853, and in the fall of the year 1855, they came west in a "Prairie Schooner" settling first in Appanoose county, Iowa. He started to improve his first western home by hueing the logs that made his house and barn. Eight years later, he, with his wife and family moved to Madison county, Iowa to the farm he now leaves for the "home not made with hands."

Having been a pioneer of both counties he endured all the hardships and trials of those early days and by honest toil and having improved the farm and built a comfortable home until it now stands among the best in Madison county.

In his early life he was converted and united with the Methodist church, remaining in that faith until his death. He was a man of strong character and numbered his friends by those who knew him best.

To this union was born eight children, four sons and four daughters, LeRoy F. Clifton, James Clifton, Mrs. Sarah McGuire and Mrs. Luella Deardorff, of East Peru, Iowa and Charles Clifton of Osceola, Iowa and one son died, preceding his father in death several years ago. Mrs. Clifton died April 9, 1881, leaving her companion and children in the home, and as the years went by the family left the home with the youngest daughter, Luella, who afterwards married and with her husband, Frank Deardorff, remained with him at the home farm and faithfully and tenderly cared for her father during his declining years.

For the past three years he has not been well and the past year he has been helpless, five weeks ago he suffered a stroke of paralysis and in all his sickness he was never heard to complain or murmur.

Had he lived to September 23d he would have been eight-five years of age and he had been heard to say he had lived his life and ready to go, and today we weep not as those who have no hope for we feel he has just gone on before.

He leaves his seven children, seventeen grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren, and a host of friends to mourn his death. The funeral was held from the home on Friday, September 5th conducted by the pastor, Rev. C. W. Peel and interment in the Ebenezer cemetery, the pall bearers being six grandsons of the deceased.

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