Minerva Alice (Bray) Meharry (1951)

BRAY, DUNCAN, MEHARRY

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson
Date: 9/11/2012 at 18:10:13

Newspaper Unknown
Creston, Iowa
November 1951

The Reaper has come again and one of our lifetime friends has been called home to her reward after living a long and useful life. Minerva B. Bray was born June 24, 1857 at the homestead in Madison County, Iowa, southwest of where Macksburg now stands; and passed to the great beyond October 30, 1951 at the age of 94 years, 4 months, 6 days at the Benson Nursing Home in Creston, IA.

She was the fifth child of John and Asenath M. Duncan Bray, who came from Indianapolis, Ind., in 1848 in covered wagons and settled open prairie and timber land. After the log house was built a store building was started of logs and built near the house. The journey was made to Chariton for goods and this was the trading place in the Bray settlement. The Indians traded with them and they were friends. Many are the stories about the pioneer and Indian days. There were only a few log houses at Winterset.

Later the family moved to Union County, Dodge Township, in 186?, where they lived for the next generation. The house is still standing near the Dodge Center church. It was there in these very early years that typhoid fever raged among the early settlers. Grandmother Bray helped care for the sick in homes where the death angel claimed one or two from a family.

Minerva Bray, at the age of 1?, taught in the country schools. She was united in marriage to Charles Maharry, March 2, 1887 at the Bray home. They lived on their farm homes in Union County with the exception of two years in Missouri. Mr. Maharry preceeded her in death, February 8, 1935. She lived in the home for awhile them moved to Creston, IA.

The Maharry home was a grand ome for kind hospitality. Their friends were many. They gave homes to three children, many people called it a home. Mrs. Maharry was raised in a Christian home of Baptist belief, her mother coming from a Quaker family from North Carolina. Later Mr. & Mrs. Maharry joined the Methodist church near their home and were active in church work.------

Funeral services were held at the Methodist church in Afton, at 2 p.m., November 2, Rev. O.C. Ellis, in his sermon so well given referred to Psalms 90-10 as of the score years. Mrs. James Beatty sang, "Beyond the Sunset" with her mother, Mrs. Carl Huss at the piano.

Pallbearers were Elmer Ruckman, Art Elliott, Bert Dady, Lyle Tyler, Bert Tyler and Ira Walker. She was laid to rest by the side of her husband and her mother and father in the Moon Cemetery south of Macksburg, less than a mile from where she was born. She was last of her family. Two nieces and one nephew, John Bray of Creston, were her only near relatives.

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