Magoun, Elizabeth Earle 1833-1897

MAGOUN, MERRILL, EARLE, WORMLEY

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/29/2012 at 11:55:12

The Grinnell (IA) Herald; January 12, 1897

The Following obituary notice was prepared at our request by Professor Barnes:

Elizabeth Earle was a native of Maine, born in Brunswick, August 28, 1833. She was the second child of George Earle and Angeline Merrill Earle, and had two sisters, Mary and Frances. When she was five years old there came to the children that supreme loss, a mother's death, and for four years they had their home with the maternal grandmother, Mrs. Merrill, of Brunswick. In 1842 Mr. Earle married again.

At the age of seventeen she was confirmed in St. Paul's church, Brunswick, by Bishop Burgess. In later life she often expressed her sense of deep obligation to the gentle and saintly Mr. Fales who was then rector of St. Paul's. She remained in the communion of the Episcopal church until she joined the Congregational church in Grinnell. Never was a church member more loyal. Strongly believing in systematic giving, always ready to serve, bestowing unstinted labor for many years as Sunday school teacher, leader of the teacher's meeting, director of mission bands and the like--these things are too fresh in our memory to call for more than mention.

Her life work as a teacher was begun in the summer of 1851, when she took a school in New Meadows, Maine. In the fall of that year she went south to King William County, Virginia, to teach in the family of Dr. Wormley, husband of her sister Mary. Two years were spent here and two more in work in an institution for the blind at Louisville, Kentucky. After some study at Mount Holyoke, another year was spent in this Kentucky institution, and still another as a teacher in a private school in Louisville. These seven years in the South, at the time just before the war, gave her familiar acquaintance with many aspects of southern society, and it is to be regretted that she never carried out her expressed purpose of writing out her recollections.

South Hadley she first went to when she was twenty-two years old, spending a year then, and another year when she was twenty-six, graduating with the class of 1860. Then followed seven years of happy and fruitful teaching, years which gave her so many warm friends among her pupils that Dr. Magoun used to say he could not preach anywhere without some South Hadley graduate coming up and claiming acquaintance with him as the husband of Miss Earle. There could hardly be a better embodiment of the Mount Holyoke spirit than Mrs. Magoun. The strong practical enthusiasm, the quick sense of responsibility, the deeply religious spirit for which that institution has been so noted, were conspicuous in her, mellowed by broad human interests, and a keen sense of the sweetness of God's earth.

In 1867 she accepted the position of lady principal in the State University of Wisconsin, under President Chadbourne, who was a life long friend. After two years work there, she took charge of an Episcopal boarding school for girls, in Waterbury, Conn., and she doubtless would have carried out the plans of the trustees for a strong and excellant school, had not that interruption come which so often breaks up plans like these--marriage. July 5, 1870 she became the wife of President George F. Magoun, but this could hardly be said to close her educational work. She served in Grinnell as lady principal for two years after Miss Ellis' departure, and she occasionally acted as substitute teacher in literature and philosophy, her favorite studies. Her personal interest in the students of Iowa College was unfailing and eager. She delighted to brighten their lives by Thanksgiving parties and other social attentions. But most of all was she intensely desirous that their religious life should be real and vigorous. No one can number the earnest and prayerful conferences she held with the boys and girls of the college; no one can estimate how much of stimulus and guidance was thus given in times of spiritual need.

But most characteristic of her later years was her interest in the work of foreign missions. No sympathetic and responsive student of South Hadley could fail of catching this enthusiasm, for South Hadley has always regarded missions as the apotheosis of life. Always interested in every form of home missions, and impartially dividing her gifts, Mrs. Magoun yet felt that the foreign fields, the lands that had never heard the Gospel, had special and commanding claims, and she gave her strength without reserve to every foreign missionary labor that came within her reach. Her early plan of going herself as a foreign missionary was defeated more than once, chiefly by the physical weakness and consequent needs of her younger sister Frances. Those who remember how sweet and noble was the character of this sister will easily understand that sisterly sacrifice had its immediate reward. But Mrs. Magoun proved, as so many in her case have proved, that one can be a true missionary in spirit and labor, even if they must remain in the home land. She was the first president of the Iowa Branch of the Woman' Board of Missions for the Interior, serving from 1876 until 1895, when her failing strength compelled her to leave this beloved work.

Those familiar with the history of woman's missionary meetings will remember how jealously the men were at first excluded, and how, little by little, a man or two was allowed to stray in, until at last ladies who started with the old-fashioned idea of never speaking before men, came to be quite at ease in addressing a mixed audience. It was in this way that Mrs. Magoun gradually became known as a public speaker; and she was encouraged by her husband even to occupy a pulpit and the time of the sermon with a missionary address. The Doctor used to take an obvious pleasure in informing some less progressive friend that his wife "had gone off preaching." Many churches in Iowa have been thus visited by her, and many a woman dates her earnest interest in missions from the time when she first heard Mrs. Magoun; for she was a speaker of unusual effectiveness, her clear enunciation and resonant voice ably reinforcing her thorough knowledge and fervent appeal.

Of her home life little need be said in this town that has known her so well and so long. Suffice it to say that the children to whom she came as a second mother were served with a rare devotion and affection, and learned to love her as unreservedly as they could have loved the one whom death had taken when they were still little. What a tower of strength she was to her husband in all the various demands of college life in days of storm and stress that came to the institution and to him personally, all know who knew them. Strong natures both of them, warmly admiring each other, and working unitedly for the things both held to be the highest, their union was one of great mutual helfulness and comfort.

It was not easy to realize that the face we looked upon last Sunday, so marked by pain and so wasted by disease, was one with that which came to Grinnell twenty-six years ago. Many of those who have seen her counted her the most beautiful woman they knew. Many who had become acquainted with her mind, who knew the varied resources of her well informed, well trained intellect, the vivid interest in all things that minister to life, the eager and incisive utterance, the instinctive and skillful leadership, have counted her the most brilliant woman they knew. It was most natural that the reading circle she founded changed its name from the Busy Woman's Club to the Elizbeth Earle Magoun Club. But there are many more who care comparatively little for beauty or brilliancy, who revere the memory of Mrs. Magoun because in her they found earth's most precious gift, a true friend, whose affection never failed to show the eternal quality.
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A large company of friends filled the Congregational church, Sunday afternoon, to hear Mr. Vittum's eloquent tribute to Mrs. Magoun's memory. A quartet, consisting of J.C. Walker, O.F. Parish, Mrs. Christian and Miss Mack, assisted by the congregation, sang hymns selected by Mrs. Magoun. Pres. Geo. A. Gates read some appropriate selections from the scripture, and Rev. E.M. Vittum spoke briefly, eloquently and touchingly of her sweet, pure life, and the influence which lived after her. The Busy Woman' Club, of which she was a leader, and her Sunday school class, all of whom devotely loved her, occupied seats with the sorrowing relatives. Tender friends acted as bearers,--H.H. Robbins, J. Macy, C.R. Morse, Chas. Noble, J.F. Smith and C.W.H. Beyer,--and gently laid away the body in Hazelwood to await the resurrection morn. A friend of Mrs. Magoun hands us the following poem:

ONE MORE IN HEAVEN.

One less at home!
The charmed circle broken, a dear face
Missed day by day from its accustomed place;
But cleansed and saved and perfected by grace--
One more in Heaven!

One less at home!
One voice of welcome hushed, and evermore
One farewell word unspoken; on the shore
Where parting comes not, one soul landed more--
One more in Heaven!

One less at home!
A sense of loss that meets us at the gate;
Within, a place unfilled and desolate;
And far away, our coming to await--
One more in Heaven!

One less at home!
Chill as the earth-born mist the thought would
rise
And wrap our footsteps round and dim our eyes;
But the bright sunshine darteth from the skies--
One more in Heaven!

One more at home!
This in not home, where cramped in earthly mold,
Our sight of Christ is dim, our love is cold;
But there, where face to face we shall behold,
Is home and Heaven!

One less on earth!
Its pain, its sorrow and its toil to share;
One less the pilgrim's daily cross to bear;
One more the crown of ransomed soul to wear,
At home in Heaven!

One more in Heaven!
Another thought to brighten cloudy days,
Another theme for thankfulness and praise,
Another link on high our souls to raise
To Home in Heaven!

One more at home!
That home where separation cannot be,
That home where none are missed eternally;
Lord, Jesus, grant us all a place with Thee,
At home in Heaven!

--S.G. Stock in New York: Observer.