Mary Martha (Chenowith) Crouch (1841-1916)

CHENOWETH, CHENOWITH, CROUCH, HALL, TRIPLETT, FISH

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 10/24/2010 at 11:36:37

From Nevada Representative June 27, 1916

OBITUARY

MRS. MARY M. CROUCH

Mrs. Mary M. Crouch of this city died on Saturday morning last at the Iowa Sanitarium after a severe illness of several weeks. The funeral was conducted by Rev. McDade from the house of her son-in-law Mayor C. H. Hall. She had been living in Nevada the most of the time for the past five years and was a long-time resident of Story county.

Mary Martha Crouch was born at Beverly in Randolph county, West Virginia of November 19, 1841 and died at Nevada, Iowa on June 24, 1916 being the age of 74 years, 8 months and 5 days. She was the daughter of George W. and Rachael Chenoweth and was last survivor of the family of which there were five children, three girls and two boys. Her sisters have been dead for several years but her oldest brother David Chenoweth passed away during the later part of May 1916 and her younger brother died on the 8th of this month. The last brother to go was Jasper Chenoweth who was a prominent Methodist preacher of the State of West Virginia, having filled some of the best pulpits of the state and also the office of Presiding Elder for several terms.

Mrs. Crouch was a member of the Old Baptist church, having been converted to that faith in her early life and hled to that belief until her death. She was married to Hickman Triplett in West Virginia on January 1st, 1861 to which union were born five children three of whom died in infancy, the two daughters surviving, being Mrs. Eva Fish of Ames and Mrs. Addie Hall of Nevada. She was later married to Jacob Crouch of Collins township in February 1885.

The Chenoweth family of which Mrs. Crouch was a member are direct descendants from the ancestry of the Cromwells, the founder of which in America, was Richard Cromwell who obtained a grant of land from the English Crown in the colonial days and settled upon the spot now occupied by the city of Baltimore, Md. During the stormy days of the Civil war she lived close to the border line between old Virginia and West Virginia. She could relate personal experiences of border warfare that were exciting and interesting. Her efforts and that of her family were always spent in the cause of the Union and against slavery but she always maintained a strong sympathy for the people of the south and she learned by close relatives to both factions the position maintained by each in that awful conflict.

Mrs. Crouch was a strong and sturdy woman who hated wrong and loved the right. She was fearless and outspoken in any cause she believed was right and this often to the sacrifice of friends. She was much given to close detail and was disposed to "take thought of tomorrow." She was prompt in meeting her obligations and expected the same promptness in others. Her plans once made could not easily be shaken and so far as possible they would be carried out to exactness.

She believed confidently in the immortality of the soul; in God the supreme being; in Christ as her Savior; in a miracculous conversion of the soul and a just punishment for sin. In this belief she was content to live and at the end to meet death "as one who wraps the drapery of the couch about her and lies down to pleasant dreams."