Hannibal Cincinnatus "Henry" Wakefield (1831-1917)

WAKEFIELD, GARBERSON, MAYNARD

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 9/28/2015 at 19:45:06

From Nevada Representative May 8, 1917

H. C. WAKEFIELD PASSES AWAY

Pioneer Citizen of This Community Answers Call in th Great Beyond Spent Over Sixty five Years of Life in Story County

Henry C. Wakefield of Gilbert died at his home there Early Monday morning, and his funeral will be conducted at the church there at 2:20 Wednesday afternoon.

The final passage of this greatly respected pioneer occasions no surprise but on the contrary attendants and friends had for some time been amazed at his tenacity of life under conditions that rendered the end inevitable. But he was a man of vigor, strength and most exemplary habit, and he held on where another would have readily succumbed. He had been in very feeble health for months, was once last fall regarded as in a critical condition, but rallied, celebrated recently, though very quietly, his sixtieth wedding anniversary, and some time last week fell into comatose state, which terminated as stated.

Mr. Wakefield was born in Vermont on February 11, 1831, and died at Gilbert, Iowa, on May 7, 1917, aged 86 years, 2 months and 26 days. He came to Story county in 1854, preempted a farm at $1.25 per acre, found here Mis Levine Gaberson and married her at Bloomington in this county, March 4, 1857, the day on which James Buchanan became president of the United States. He and Mrs. Wakefield lived all the more than sixty years of their married life within five miles of the place where they were married, being first on one farm, then for a year in Ames, then for many years on the Wakefield homestead in Franklin township and finally for the past eight years in Gilbert. Their life had been long and obviously blessed in the [unreadable] death they were the couple surpassing the average age any other married couple in Story county and had been married the longest. They were identified in the most honorable way with Story county from its early beginnings and lived to share in the common prosperity. Mr. Wakefield is survived by his venerable wife; by their children, Mrs. Laura Maynard of Limon, Colorado, Charles Wakfield of Ashland, Wisconsin, William, John and Samuel of Ames. Miss Maude Wakefield, county superintendent of schools at Nevada, and Misses Emma and Polly at home, also by seven grandchildren.