Chamberlain, Sarah Easter Bryan 1856-1943

CHAMBERLAIN, BRYAN, TEMPLE

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 2/3/2012 at 12:00:32

MRS. CHAMBERLAIN REMEMBERS THE PIONEER DAYS

Sarah Easter Bryan was born the eldest child of Bedy and Margaret A. Bryan on a farm northeast of Montezuma, Iowa, Feb. 21, 1856. The house had been built by her pioneer father out of rough oak lumber by setting posts in the ground and nailing the rough boards to them. He covered it with shingles that he split out of the same kind of wood.

There were no trees on the farm until they were planted, as it was out in a vast prairie, where the cold winds went howling around in the winter and the snow came in abundance. The snow sometimes drifted through the openings where the boards had curled and laid on the floor where the children had to walk to get to the fire to dress in the mornings. The stairway was a ladder to the upper floor.

The home was heated by a fireplace and a small cast iron stove in which they burned wood. There was no coal to be had at that time in that part of the country. There were no oil lamps or electric lights. They burned candles made by melting beef tallow and pouring it into moulds made of tin, which had wicks made of loosely twisted cotton cord, drawn down through the moulds and tied around the lower end of them to keep the melted tallow from leaking out before it got hard.

Sarah was joined in this pioneer home by one sister, Mary Elizabeth, who died at the age of twenty, and three brothers, Elliott M. Bryan, now of Des Moines, Ia., John B. Bryan of Montezuma, Ia., and William A. Bryan of Peoria, Ill. All of the brothers are still living.

The children attended a log school house nearby on the prairie until the school house burned down. After that they went into Montezuma to school.

On Dec. 28, 1882, Sarah was married to John Mitchell Chamberlain. They went to live on the Chamberlain farm at the north-west corner of Montezuma with Mr. Chamberlain's father, John Chamberlain. There they lived giving the aging father loving care until his death, March 1, 1900. To their union were born five children: Sylvia A., Charles L., William L., and Lawrence and Clarence, twins.

After the father's death, Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain moved Feb. 1902, to their farm in Washington township in the Blue Point neighborhood south-east of Grinnell, Ia. there Mrs. Chamberlain made her home for seventeen years with her husband and children. As her husband's health failed, she assumed the management of the farm with the help of her sons. Mr. Chamberlain died in 1918.

In September, 1919, Mrs. Chamberlain moved to her home at 1425 Reed St., Grinnell, a home with electric lights, running water and coal to burn, so different from the pioneer home where she was born.

There, for tweanty-four years, she enjoyed the companionship of her children, grandchildren, relatives, neighbors and friends as they came and went but she loved her home and seldom left her home circle. Two grandsons, Howard and Kenneth, lived in her home for several years.

She enjoyed the outdoors and especially her chickens and flowers. She helped care for the cows, chickens, and garden up to the last few months of her life. There she died Feb. 25, 1943, at the age of eighty-seven years and four days. Besides her husband, three of her children, Charles L., Lawrence and Clarence had preceded her in death. She is survived by two children, Mrs. Sylvia A. Temple and William L. Chamberlain of Grinnell; six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren besides three brothers, cousins, nieces and nephews, and a host of friends.

Early in life she united with the M.E. Church in Montezuma and continued in that faith through her life.

All who knew her loved her for her quiet, unassuming manner, and gentle disposition. She bore the infirmities of age and the sufferings of the long months of her illness, from heart trouble, with the same sweet patience she had shown through life.

Our loved one will be greatly missed by her family and friends. She has left a place that never can be filled.

Funeral services were held Feb. 28, 1943, from the Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell with Rev. O.W. Glassburn of the North Side Friends Church in charge. Mrs. Margery Bouma and Mrs. Roscoe Dempster sang, "Rock of Ages" and "Shall We Gather at the River." The pallbearers were Theodore Risse, Arthur Risse, Bert Beason, Willard Lillie, Ott Smith and Con See.

She was laid to rest by the side of her husband and son, Charles, in the beautiful Masonic and I.O.O.F. cemetery at Montezuma, Iowa.