Ellis Armstrong (1814-1897)

ARMSTRONG, MOORE, STONE, WATEES

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 7/8/2006 at 13:39:25

The Roland Record, Roland, Story County, Iowa, January 29, 1897.

OUR FATHER
Last Friday evening the members of the Reocrd family were shocked to receive a telegram announcing the death of the senior Editor, at his home at Nevada. The news was indeed sad and startling as we had no knowledge of any sickness having left him, but about a week prvious apparently as hale and hearty as he was twenty years ago. Below we publish the obituary as it appears in the Nevada Representive:
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A PIONEER GONE
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Ellis Armstrong Passes Away Aged Nearly 88.
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Ellis Armstrong, one of the earliest settlers of Nevada, died at his home in this city last Friday afternoon, after an illness of a few hours, which was not regared as critical until the very hour of his demise. He had, up to Thursday evening, been in full enjoyment of his usual good health and all the vigor and sprightliness possible to one of his advanced age. He was until the adjournment of court that afternoon an interested spectator of the trial then in progress; and neither he nor anyone else had reason to suspect that his sands of life were nearly run. He was taken in the early morning of Friday with neuralgia of the stomach, but the trouble had yielded to treatment and he was apparently doing well, when at half-past three paralysis of the heart resulted, and all was over in a moment. There was not even time between the warning and the end to summon relatives from out of the house.

Ellis Armstrong was born at Lexington, Kentucky, February 2, 1814, and died at Nevada, Iowa, January 22, 1897, aged 82 years, 11 months and 22 days. He grew up at Lexington, and was in the first years of his manhood engaged there with his father in stock raising. In 1838 he removed to Franklin, Johnson county, Indiana, where he was married June the 2d, 1842, to Miss Charlotte E. Moore, who survives him. He moved with his family from Franklin to Des Moinse to Nevada in 1855. That was the second season of this village, and he started a store in the log building which has for many years been his barn, and which he then put up on the south side of D. J. Vinje's residence lots fronting the park. He lived for a time in an addition in the rear of the store and then built just north of the store the house in which he lived the rest of his days which he moved to its present site in 1863. He went out of the store about the latter date and was thereafter engaged variously in cabinet making, carpentering and farming. He had eight children, of whom the eldest, Celinda Jane, died as she was budding into womanhood and two others died in infancy. The other five are Mrs. Mary E. Stone, of Nevada, William E. of Roland, Simon E. and Henry A. of Nevada, and Mrs. Carrie Watees, of Kansas City. All of these, it will be noted, live in Nevada but two, and all in Story county but one; and they are all married and have families of their own.

The story of a long, useful and exemplary life is told in words that seem too few. Mr. Armstrong was of of the early pioneers who, where there was not a railroad in the state, and only one stage line across it, came here upon this prairie with deer for their neighbors and wolves for their frequent visitors, and founded a town and county. He was modest in his life and his aspirations but was always staunch and true. He was said to have been the first man to place his name on the Representative subscription list, but we do not recall that he ever asked any recognition of his forty years of unwavering support. He was a firm Baptist and an unswerving Republican. He believed in what was right and talked for it. He paid his debts, and brought up his children in teh way they should go. He did what he could to make his niche inthe world what it should be. It is of such that great nations and properous people are made. And his end came, as he had often wished and his friends might desire, without long suffering and anxious waiting. He was within ten days of his 83d birthday, but he had not begun dying at the top. His old age had been vigorous and contented. He was well one day and the next he was not, and that was all.

The funeral was conducted from the house Monday afternoon by Rev. Black of Ames, assisted by Rev. Palm of Nevada, and the Presbyterian choir furnishing the music. All of the children and grand-children and their respective life partners were present, except two of the last; and the attendance of friends and neighbors was large in the spite of the weather. The last services were greatful to the relatives and appropriate to the memory of an honored patriarch.