Sarah Eliza (Ballard) Boyes 1844 - 1921

BALLARD, BOYES

Posted By: Linda H Meyers (email)
Date: 5/3/2013 at 16:46:45

Passing of Mrs. Sarah E. Boyes

Written by Mrs. Boyes
Custom calls for a funeral sermon or talk, to be given over the remains of loved ones gone. 'Tis fitting that soothing words should be given to beheaved hearts.
I have no fear of death. I believe if we live right we will die right. Electricity seems to rule the world and nature, the overruling power, is called God. It may seem strange to some that all these years I have lived outside the church.
I could not be a hypocrite and pretend to believe a doctrine unfavorable to my views. My motto through life has been to do as I wish to be done by. My religion has been to lead an honorable, upright life, trying to make others happy, striving to be a good wife and a kind hearted mother to my children; teaching them, by example true womanhood and true manhood, and I feel my efforts have not been in vain.
When I am through with this world of care, may it be said: She has fulfulled her mission to the best of her ability.
These are the sentiments of one who has tried to lead a true life according to her own convictions.

Mrs. Sarah E. Boyes.
I would like to have W. P. Payne, or some broad minded person, conduct my funeral, who has liberal views.

Mrs. Sarah E. Boyes
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(Tribute by W. P. Payne.)
Dear Friends: - The brief statement which has just been read in your presence may properly be regarded as the religious creed of the one whose vacated dwelling place of her soul rests in death's unbreakable stillness in its burial casket before us. It was prepared some years ago and is recorded in her own hand writing. Carefully analyzed it reveals a basis of underlying thought, conviction and character that has, in this instance, at least, borne most excellent life fruitage.

Whoever, out of an honest heart, can declare as did Mrs. Boyes, "I have no fear of death," has simply reached conclusions that transforms the once conceived hideous gloom of the great beyond future into joyous light; conclusions that rob death of its sting and the grave of its victory; and better still, conclusions that convert into living and inspiring truth, Longfellow's victorious proclamation "There is no death; what seems so is transition," and that "this life of fleeting breath is but the suburb of the life Elysian."

To believe that right living leads to right dying, as did our departed friend, is only believing that the law of cause and effect is operative in moral and spiritual realms as well as in the fields of material forces; and that the doctrine of a "Square Deal" should prevail in heavenly concerns as well as in the earthly. Her life motto: "To do to others as she wished to be done by," coupled with an earnest desire to lead an honorable life and to make others happy is convincing evidence that somewhere and in some way she had adsorbed the spirit and purposes of the Master - the Man of Galilee - and had gathered in as much of the kingdom of God as the best of us have been able to secure. As stated, her religious life all along the way, has been outside of the church. But this anti-church attitude was not, we are sure, in antagonism to the church in general as an institution. It was simply because the chruches with which she came in contact held tenets of faith and doctrine to which she could not subscribe without doing violence to her conscientious convictions. Had she lived near those churches whose views of God, man, and destiny accorded with her own, we are confident she gladly would have sought membership within their doors.

At all events, she earnestly desired to live that when her mortal life should close, it might be truthfully said, "She fulfilled her life mission to the best of her ability." There are none, we are sure, within the wide range of her acquaintance to deny to her memory this well deserved need of praise.

She strove as she records, to be a good wife and a kind and wise mother. She taught her children by precept and example the principles of true manhood and womanhood. In these ways and many others she became a devoted and successful home builder and home keeper.

For nearly half a century we have known her and her household. We have been a frequent guest in her home and bear willing and grateful testimony to her wide intelligence, unstinted hopitality, unfailing neighborly kindness and genuine worth. She was a member of one of our large and influential pioneer families, and all the life journey through contributed her full share of thought and service along the lines that have put Story county into the front ranks of counties of the commonwealth of peerless Iowa.

In her death, Story county and Nevada have lost one of their most worthy and valued citizens, and she will be long and kindly remembered, not only by her relatives but by the communities in which her days hae been passed. To the home friends of the one now gone on before,we invoke the blessing and comfort of Him who is above all, through all and is us all; and as we reverently place the weary body by kindred dust; let us do so with the abiding cnoviction that "Dust thou art, to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul."