Mary Elmira Grossclose Griffith (1854-1918)

GRIFFITH, GROSSCLOSE, WHITEMAN, MCCLINTOCK, JONES, HOPPER, ROSEBURROUGH

Posted By: Gail and Dennis Bell
Date: 6/11/2005 at 10:52:09

THE MAXWELL TRIBUNE, Maxwell, Iowa, Thursday, July 15, 1918. MRS JOHN W. GRIFFITH - Mrs. John W. Griffith, aged 64 years, who had been a resident of Story county since a child one year old, died at the family home in Nevada Wednesday evening of last week at 8:30 after a long illness. For a considerable period Mrs. Griffith has been in failing health and has at times undergone severe suffering. It had been feared that she could not survive; yet more recently she had shown some signs of improvement. Wednesday afternoon she seemed as strong as any times of late and in the evening continued so, but about 8:30 without warning there came the summons and in a few moments without suffering she was gone. So came the end four days before her sixty-fourth birthday. Brief services were held at the home Friday morning at 10 o'clock and the funeral services proper were held at eleven o'clock in the Elwell church in charge of Rev. R. M. Shipman. The sermon was preached by the Rev. H. G. Hicks, of Dallas Center, formerly a pastor of Mrs. Griffith and a close friend of the family. Burial was in the Center Grove cemetery where many of the relatives are interred. Mary Elmira Grosscloss, daughter of T. J. and Elizabeth Grosscloss, was born in Johnson county, Indiana, July 14, 1854. In the autumn following the family removed to Iowa, coming overland in an emigrant wagon and settling in Story county in the old Center Grove neighborhood, reared her family and live there all her life until about three years ago when the home was moved to Nevada. Her marriage to John W. Griffith took place August 24, 1871. Of the nine children born to them, two have passed away - Mrs. Clara G. Whiteman, who died June 4, 1912, and Mrs. Ida L. McClintock whose death occurred in September of 1916. The other children, together with their father are all living. They are Frank E. Griffith, E. W. Griffith, W. J. Griffith and Floyd Griffith, all of the Cambridge vicinity; Mrs. J. G. Jones and Mrs. W. T. Hopper, of Des Moines, and Mrs. C. H. Roseburrough, of Nevada. Besides these seven sons and daughters there are eleven grandchildren. Mrs. Griffith united with the Methodist Episcopal church at Center Grove when she was a young girl in her teens in 1869 and has from that time until her death maintained an unbroken connection with the church, having been a member of the Nevada organization at the time of her death. - NEVADA JOURNAL."