TOWNE, Mrs. Ella: Died 1924

TOWNE, GILBERT

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri (email)
Date: 9/3/2013 at 16:10:22

In Appreciation of My Mother, Mrs. Ella Towne, Who Passed From This Life Sept. 14th, 1924

I want you, my mother, my mother,
I'm tired with care and with fret.
I would nestle in silence beside you,
And all but your presence forget.

I call you my mother, my mother,
My voice echoes back on the heart.
I stretch my arms to you in longing
And lo, they fell empty apart.

When I was a child and my mother left home for a few hours the sun seemed to darken with her going. And now a dark cloud is close about me for mother is gone not to return in a short time for a happy reunion, for I know that while these mortal eyes can behold the scenes of this world, that never again shall I behold the face of my dear mother. She was among the last to go of the mothers of Kilbourne that I knew as a child. There are only about two still living. Mrs. Trill Mercer and Mrs. Kate Gilbert, Mrs. Dick Skinner, Mrs. Charley Crane, Mrs. Gus Crane, Laura Maxwell, Olive Craig, Maggie Catcott, Cyntha Stong and Aunt Owa Towne, being some of the loving and loved mothers of my childhood.

At my first remembrance the Minear children were already motherless and Anna bravely trying to fill her mother's place in the home.

Love is blind I know, but I truly believe that mother scarcely ever had a selfish thought. Her mother passed away when mother was twelve years of age and she and her older sister cared for the other six little children keeping them in the home and bringing them up to be an unusually unselfish family. All of these children called her Mother.

Then she was married to my father, who had one child from a former marriage. She mothered him and in a recent letter he expressed himself as believing that she was all that a good woman should be. She raised six children of her own to manhood and womanhood, and to every one of them she would have given her heart's blood.

When small I used to have terrible headaches. No matter how tired mother was or how late the hour she would climb the stairs to sooth and comfort. I have never had a severe trial but she was there with the touch of hen(her) dear hand, and her words of sympathy.

To the community she was Aunt Elly and for years when the new baby came it was given its first bath and its first clothing put on by Aunt Elly. If there were sickness in the home it was "Send for Aunt Elly."

My father's death occurred two years ago in October. Before that for about five or six years his mind had been as a child's. She cared for him. Her life was spent in serving others. I thought I could write my appreciation, but who could write an appreciation of a Mother? I only know that I loved her "worlds without end" and that even in dying she was kind, for I know that my going will be easier from the knowing that whe will be there waiting for me, by the side of Him who said "He that would be the greatest among you let Him be servant of all."

How seriously the living praise the dead,
That which all men admire, all women mourn,
????? the spirit, not the body born,
???? gentle heart, and not the clever head.
In life high conquest counts, in death we ace
That which the least of us have power to be,
Lord, I would work and neighbor here
Too big to hate; too wise to sneer.
I would be cheerful, helpful, kind,
Gentle of speech and broad of mind,
And tho not far my circle swings,
Let me be great in little thing.

MRS. HUGH GILBERT, Kilbourne.

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book, C, Page 216, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA