David L. Beezley

BEEZLEY, WILSON, WALANDER

Posted By: Ida Morse (email)
Date: 1/13/2006 at 21:18:08

Earlham Library Obituaries January 1920
Earlham, Iowa

Obituary of David L. Beezley

Another of our pioneer builders and developers has laid aside forever his earthly tasks. On the morning of the first day of the new year 1920 David L. Beezley passed away, having suffered a painful illness of two weeks following a general breaking down of his physical forces. He had been stricken while at the home of his adopted son. Will Beezley, and it was in that home that he closed his eyes in the last long sleep. All that the affectionate attention of his sons, Will and John, and their families, and his brothers, Jesse and James could do was done to relieve his sufferings, but neither medical skill nor devoted nursing could stay the progress of his disease.

The funeral was held Saturday afternoon in the Friends church, the services being in charge of the pastor of the Community church with which the Friends organization here is offilated, the Rev. C. G. Stout. Appropriate music was rendered by a double mixed quartet. The beatiful casket was covered with floral offerings, silent tributes of friends innumerable to the high value placed upon his friendship by all who knew him. If any futher testimony of this were needed, it was found in the unusually large congregation which asembled (assembled) from all parts of the valley. Burial was in Cedar Hill Cemetery, by the side of his late wife.

David L. Beezley, the son of Joseph and Cynthia Beezley, was born at Thorntown, Indiana, on the ninth of August in 1838, and was therefore four months and twenty-three days past his eighty-first birthday annivesary. He was one of a family of six brothers and one sister, of whom only two brothers, Jesse and James, survive him. All three for many years have resided in the vicinity of Paonia.

When David Beezley was about eight years of age he removed with his parents to Henry county, Iowa, and at twenty-one years of age he left the home there to make his own way in the world. That he was possessed of splendid qualifications for doing this successfully is shown by the story of his ubequent (subsequent) achievement. True to the spirit of the ambitious young man of his day, he turned westward and found employment at Des Moines, then a village of about a thousand inhabitants without a railroad. After a time spent in this way he sought to build a home and with that in view he settled on a piece of land near Earlham, Iowa.

On May 3, 1866, he was united in marriage to Eunice S. Wilson, in the North Branch Meeting of Friends in Madison County, Iowa. After twelve years of weeded (wedded) life, in 1878 it became their pleasure to receive into their home the infant twin sons of Gust and Mary Walander at the death of their mother. The little ones in a very few days awakened the parent love in Mr. and Mrs. Beezley to the extent that they pleaded for the babes to become their own and in less than a year legally adopted them as their children and heirs. These two sons, John W. and William W. survive their parents and live at Paonia.