Bliss, Jessie Winslow 1864-1951

BLISS, BRAYTON, MEETER, TAYLOR, REDDIN, DEERY

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 3/19/2011 at 09:42:57

The Grinnell Herald-Register

OBITUARY

MRS. E.C. BLISS

Jessie Winslow Meeteer, daughter of Samuel Thomas Meeteer and Mary Caroline Brayton Meeteer, was born April 11, 1864, near Manteno, Ill. When she was thirteen years old the family moved to Kansas, where she later attended the normal course of Baker university for two years and prepared herself for her three years of teaching.

Jan. 15, 1890, she was united in marriage with Dr. Edwin Clarence Bliss. Except for half a dozen years, all of their forty-nine years together were spent in Grinnell, the birthplace of Dr. Bliss. Because of her frail health, due in part to the malarial fever of her Kansas days, and also because of a severe muscular weakness of her eyes, she had been unable to complete her education at Baker university. However she had a keen and inquiring mind and her children recall the pleasure of the long evenings when her husband read to her the books which in part satisfied her great yearning for knowledge.

In Grinnell she belonged to the Congregational church, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Searchlight club and the Humane society. Her greatest activity outside her home was in connection with the Humane society and her personal efforts to protect suffering children and animals. Her husband said of her that she personified the spirit of the Beatitude, "Blessed are the Merciful." She was a deeply religious woman and an ardent supporter of justice and the democratic principles of the American republic.

After Dr. Bliss retired from his practice of medicine in Grinnell he and Mrs. Bliss spent two winters with their daughter, Mrs. Lloyd Taylor in Oberlin, O. During the second winter Dr. Bliss died. Mrs. Bliss has made her home with her daughter since that time.

Mrs. Bliss died Jan. 3, 1951, after an illness of only three days. The funeral was held on Jan. 6, in charge of the Rev. Joseph F. King. Her ashes will later be interred in the family lot in Hazelwood cemetery.

She is survived by her daughter, Esther Taylor, of Oberlin, her son, Edwin Meeteer Bliss of Casper, Wyo., three grandchildren, Evelyn Bliss Reddin of Bowling Green, O., Ruth Taylor Deery of Longview, Wash., and two greatgranddaughters, Susan and Linda Deery of Longview, Wash.