Rev. Cephas Baird (1835-1908)

BAIRD, BESSYE, VALENTINE, KLINE

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 3/2/2017 at 17:04:02

From Nevada Representative March 27, 1908

OBITUARY

Death of Rev. C. M. Baird.

The following dispatch from Santa Monica, California, to the Chicago Tribune gives about all that is known locally concerning the death of a former well known resident of Nevada. The dispatch is dated march 23; and it says:

"Already deaf and threatened with total blindness, the Rev. Cepha M. Baird, a retired Lutheran minister, 73 years old deliberately chose death by starvation as an alternative. He died from exhaustion and lack of nourishment last night.

"Two months ago the aged minister fell asleep near the open fireplace after placing a newspaper over his face. Live coals ignited the covering and in a moment the man's face was terribly scorched and his sight destroyed. When a physician informed him that he would be blind the Rev. Mr. Baird refused food, and declared he did not wish to live without sight or hearing. He slowly fell into despondency, and despite the efforts of those attending him continued to fail, until his sufferings ended last night. He was born near Akron, O. He organized and built twenty-six churches of various western states. He had occupied pastoring in Indianapolis, Ind.; Cedar Rapids, Ia.; Mount Carrill, Ill.; Anna, Ill.; Nevada, Ia.; and Dakota City, Neb. John Baird, a son, lives in Mount Carroll, Ill., and a daughter, Mrs. Jack Bessye, resides in Chicago.

Mr. Baird came to Nevada very early in the 80's and organized the Lutheran church of this city and also, we think, at Johnson's Grove. The latter church was rather the more prosperous for a time, and he retained pastoral relations with it after he had relinquished his work in town to Rev. J. A. M. Ziegler. He remained here for a few years after giving up local pastoral work and then removed to South Sioux City, where he was instrumental in founding a Lutheran society and building a church. Indeed he was a natural pioneer in church work, and though he did not remain long in the work at any particular place he accomplished very much in very many places. He was in mercantile business in Nevada for a time or another in various pursuits. But his lifework was the building of churches. In time his work told on him, and a few years ago he went to southern California to live with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Genora Valentine, and it was at her home that he died, giving up the struggle with both deafness and blindness. Mr. Baird was four times married and he had seven children. Of the latter the ones best remembered in Nevada are his son Z. M. of Hartington, Nebraska, and his daughter Bessie, now Mrs. Kline, of Sioux City. Mr. Baird was a man of very great force, and the painful circumstances of his death are noted here with much regret.