Barnett Wilson (1921)

WILSON, HAINES, HORTON, BARNETT, MCBRIDE

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 9/14/2013 at 07:44:29

Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Wednesday, August 10, 1921
Page 7

Earlham

The funeral of Barnett Wilson was held Wednesday afternoon at two thirty, at the Friends church. Rev. Lescault had charge of the service. Mr. Wilson had been as well as usual and on Monday morning, as was his habit, went down town for the mail and over to the depot, as it was near train time. While talking to Jim Fry in regard to transportation, he was seized with apoplexy and died instantly.

Barnett Wilson was a quiet, unassuming man with strong convictions as to right and wrong. He was one of Earlham’s pioneers, his parents moving to the Penn Center neighborhood when he was a child. His father, Thomas Wilson, built what is known as the Grout house, now occupied by Charles Scar. Mr. Wilson has spent the past six years caring for his invalid wife, who has been helpless exactly six years on the day of her husband’s death.

It seemed providential that his daughter, Mrs. Nelle Horton of Whittier, Calif., and son, W. J. Barnett of Colville, Wash., were both visiting here at the time of his death and are left with Mrs. Mary Barnett of Indianola and Mrs. Lizzie Barnett and Mrs. Ida McBride, both of Earlham, with the invalid mother to mourn the loss of one ever faithful and true to his family. Mr. Wilson said only a few days ago to his daughter, Mrs. Horton, that “the true hope in the world is Jesus Christ” and no doubt died firm in that belief.
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Earlham Echo
Earlham, Iowa
Thursday, August 4, 1921

BARNETT WILSON OBEYS SUMMONS

Heart Failure Cost Life of Venerable Citizen-Pioneer, 64 of Four-Score Years Spent in Vicinity of Earlham.

The community was pained and shocked to learn Monday of the sudden death of Mr. Barnett Wilson, one of its aged pioneers, a man more than ordinarily linked with earlier affairs of the town and who still maintained an active contact with the interests of the municipality and his fellow men. Just before ten o’clock on this morning he went to the depot as was his invariable custom. Without warning he was suddenly seen to stagger, and before a hand could be lifted in his behalf he fell prone upon his face. So quickly ---- the messenger come and the faithful heart ceased to beat, he was dead when he was lifted from the platform. He died as one could wish to die, without illness or pain, with nearly an interruption of his customary mode of life.

Funeral services were held at the Friends Church Wednesday afternoon at 2:30, conducted by Rev. Lescault in the presence of a great company of the sorrowing relatives and friends. It was on this occasion that the very complete biographical tribute that appears further in this column was read. Interment was in the Earlham Cemetery.

Some men's lives are larger in death than in life, for as we read the completed record of the life can we see more clearly the strength and courage of the man and real value of his life. So it is in the death of Barnett Wilson. There are reasons for this, for he was a quiet man, he called no attention to his doings but in quietness and faithfulness he performed the duties of husband and father, neighbor and citizen.

He was one of twelve children born to Thomas and Ruth Barnett Wilson. He was born April 23rd, 1841 in Marion County, Indiana, but this good Quaker family endowed with the courage and faith of adventure of the early pioneers of this country left the old home in Indiana in 1857 and came to Iowa to seek out and establish a new home for themselves and to add their strength and labors to the reclaiming of these rolling prairies of grass and waste to home of wealth and comfort. They located in the Penn Center neighborhood so that sixty-four years of his life has been lived in and around Earlham.

He was married to Tamson Haines on March 20, 1864. Five children were born to them, four daughters and one son and they gave a home to Frank Copeland, an orphan boy, taking him at nine years of age and keeping him until he was grown.

He was of Quaker parents and was interested in the work of the church, especially of later years. He offered to furnish the stone for the basement of the church and attended the services when able to do so but the greater part of the past six years of his life has been one of willing, untiring services for his wife who during all that time has been an invalid. His care of her has occupied his mind, faith in Christ was expressed to his family the other day when discussing the condition and needs of the world.

He was a kind father and husband and a good neighbor in spite of rapidly failing health the past year or so he has been cheerful and optimistic and followed the usual habits of his life when many others would have given more to their failing strength. He kept alive to the times and maintained an interest and appreciation for the friends of his childhood. Only the past few days he rejoiced in the association with three of his school mates of sixty years ago.

Death came suddenly to him on the morning of August 1st. He leaves the wife and children, Lizzie Barnett and Ida McBride, of Earlham, Nellie Horton of Whittier, California, Mary Barnett, of Indianola, and Wm. Wilson of Colville, -----, Fourteen grandchildren, four great grandchildren, two sisters and one brother. One sister Martha Wood of Lemar, Colorado, and the brother, John Wilson of Willey, Colorado could not be present at the funeral, but his sister June Frances of Des Moines and all of his children were present.

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