Guenther, Josephine "Josie" 1862 - 1883

GUENTHER

Posted By: Doris Hoffman, Volunteer (email)
Date: 1/27/2012 at 17:22:15

It becomes our painful duty to chronicle a death that has in it all the sadness of a tragedy. Miss Josephine Guenther, step-daughter of B. H. Hueiseman. Esq. died at the residence of her parents on Monday morning at 2 clock, aged 21 years.

She was born in Muenster, Westphalia. June 14, 1862, came to this country with her widowed mother in 1867, did to this place in the fall of 1876. Miss Guenther came to Le Mars as a child, and a more winsome one, was not to be seen on our streets. As she grew in years, she grew in beauty and into all the tender graces of young womanhood. Her mind developed as did her body, and she earned an honorable living as a school teacher in Sioux county. Josie, as she was familiarly called, was ambitious, and made up her mind to learn the art of telegraphy, and succeeded in getting a position in the Western Union office at Des Moines.

Here Mr. Thomas Yearnshaw. General Superintendent of that company's business at that place, attracted no less by her accomplishments than her beauty offered her his hand and heart, which was accepted, and the wedding was to have taken place on Christmas. The preparations were made, and little did she or her lover think that the wedding robe was to be a shroud and the bridal veil, a pall, but the tragedies of human existence had not been considered. Josie was taken ill and came home for a rest, but never again did she pass from her sick chamber till she went forth to the rest that awaits all the weary of earth.

The affianced came hither, heart broken, to follow the remains of her he loved to God's Acre,

He loved, but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb,
Oh, she was fair, but naught could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

She was buried on Tuesday morning in the Catholic cemetery, her remains being followed to their final resting place by a large concourse of sorrowing friends.

To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again
And yet In tenderest love, our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.

The Le Mars Sentinel
Thursday, February 22, 1883
Le Mars, Iowa