Wernli, Willie 1885-1887

WERNLI

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 1/25/2012 at 17:05:10

LeMars Semi-Weekly Sentinel
January 28, 1887

DIED.—Wednesday, Jan. 25, Nellie Wernli, aged 3 years in November last, and
Jan. 27, Willie, aged one year this January, both of diphtheria, and
children of Gotlieb and Helen Wernli. Funerals occurring at 4 p.m. Wednesday
and Thursday.

The Sentinel’s account of the Christmas eve exercises at the Presbyterian
Church contained this word picture. “At a given signal the gas was lowered
and a large tree opened out into three, displaying a beautiful child, little
Nellie Wernli, who had been hidden by the foliage. At the same time the
star of Bethlehem slowly arose over her head and remained suspended at the
pinnacle, presenting a magnificent scene.”

When those who were preparing the tableaux, which should give the little
folks a glimpse of that time from which all blessings come, they went out of
their own flock to the circle of another congregation to select the best
image for the central figure of their conception. Who that remembers that
inspiration can refrain from tears, not that the white winged messenger from
the elysian fields, has plucked a flower from earth to make a jewel of
heaven, but that those into whose lives this child of beauty and innocence
had grown, should be appalled with such sudden and awful sorrow. The fact
that not only one charm of their lives is gone, but that another and the
last is taken, commends the distressed parents to the most tender sympathy
of our people.

Nellie was very often a most welcome little visitor in the Editor’s home and
had become such a pet there as to make her loss felt as a personal sorrow to
the family. All lament that in this trying time, they were not able to
extend the kindly offices and the consolation, so much missed in time of
dire distress. They have been impressed with the touching sadness of such an
experience and hope that they may yet help to soften the grief and to
reconcile them to the province of Him who doeth all things well.

NOTE: Children of Gotlieb & Helen Wernli