CUTLER, Margaret (Beard) 1832-1916

CUTLER, BEARD, STEVENSON

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 9/17/2011 at 14:29:50

"GRANDMA" CUTLER DEAD

Mrs. Margaret Beard-Cutler, Revered
Pioneer of Mitchell County,
Buried Here New Year's Day.

Again the death angel has come rapping at the door of our mortality. In this instance, however, his approach has not been in sable and horrifying garb, but in a livery of light. His mission has been to pluck from our midst one in every sense ripe for the gardens of God. . . .

Margaret Beard-Cutler was born on January the 22nd, 1832, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and died on December 29, 1916, in South Bend, Indiana. Her parents were Benjamin and Mary Beard and she was one of a family of nine children, composed of six boys and three girls. All have now passed on except one brother, James Beard of Two Rivers, California. When Margaret was three years old the family moved west and settled on a farm in Dore Village, near LaPorte, Indiana. She was 19 years old when the family again moved westward, settling on a farm this time, at Frankville, Iowa. There, on the 20th anniversary of her birth, she was married to James Blair Cutler. The couple took their honeymoon journey along Canoe Creek for several miles in a wagon, and settled on a farm just outside of Decorah. On this farm they lived for nine years and it was here that their three children, Leonard C. Cutler, of Osage; Charles Cutler of Park Rapids, Minnesota; and Mary E. Cutler, now Mrs. F.A. Stevenson, of South Bend, Indiana, were born. These all survive their mother, together with seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

From Frankville the Cutler family moved to Orchard, Iowa, abouyt 1861, and after a ten-year life upon a farm they came in 1871 to Osage, where they lived together until January the 29th, 1909, when Mr. Cutler passed away . . .

During the past six years she has been with her daughter in South Bend, where she has had all the tender and solicious care which loving hands could give and where she has passed a happy old age, mellowing more and more for the great transition.

Mrs. Cutler was a woman of rare personal charm. Her life was rooted in God and she daily bore the fruits of the Spirit. When but 17 years of age she united with the Presbyterian Church of Dore village, upon confession of her faith and upon removing, finally to Orchard, united with the Congregational Church here in Osage, on August 31, 1867. She was a charter member of the Cent Society here, which afterward grew into th epresent splendid Woman's Missionary organization of the church, to which she has been a regular contributor up to the last.

Her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren rise up to call her blessed, as indeed do all who have ever known her. Her maker endowed her with a very unusual disposition at her bith an dshe has never allowed the cares and irritations of her long sojourn in the world to sully her inheritance. . . .

The body was brought to Osage on Sunday, December 31, 1916, and the last rites of the church were performed on Monday, New Years day, at 10:30 in her old home by her pastor, rev. H. Allen, assisted by a male quartet. Her children were all present, as well as many of her grandchildren. The profusion of floral offerings gave witness to the depthg and sincerity of the love which prompted them. Her body resits in peace in our silent city.

[ From a clipping at the Osage Public Library ]