PERKINS, Ira Francis "Frank": Died 1902

PERKINS

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 7/26/2015 at 05:27:06

WOEFUL ACCIDENT
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A Son of Mr. Frank Perkins Shot to Death.
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HE ONLY LIVED FORTY MINUTES
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Accident Occurred Near the House, But No One Knows How It Occurred - Large Number at Funeral.

News came about 1.30 o'clock Sunday of a sad and shocking accident at the home of Mr. Frank Perkins, about a mile southeast of Mt. Zion. Frank Perkins, Jr., aged about 16 years, was preparing to take to Keosauqua his sister, who is attending school here. Before going, he thought to take a chicken along, and went out to kill the fowl. Soon after the report of the pistol was heard, but the youth did not return to the home immediately, and some one went to inquire why. The nearly lifeless body was at once found. No one saw the terrible accident, unless it was a little three year old child, and hence no one knows just how it happened; but it is supposed the weapon held fire, and as the deceased raised it up to examine it, the cartridge was discharged. The deceased was left handed and the ball entered the left eye. The bullet ranged downward resting at the base of the brain. Life became extinct about 40 minutes after the shooting. Dr. Craig was called, but could do nothing.

Mr. Frank Perkins, father of the deceased, is one of the most prominent and highly respected citizens in this section, and the family is very highly regarded. The deceased, as far as he was known, was also highly esteemed, and his untimely death was the subject of conversation and of regret everywhere Sunday evening.

The funeral services were held at the Presbyterian church at Mt. Zion at 12 o'clock Tuesday and were attended by a large concourse of sympathising friends. The services were conducted by Rev. C.E. Perkins of this place, and the burial was at the Dibble cemetery near Pierceville. Mr. Perkins spoke in part as follows:

"I am far from saying or thinking that such an occurrence as that which calls us here today is anything other than pitifully, woefully sad. It is in very truth, a visitation to wrench the heart-strings and fill the very soul with sorrow. It is an awful, appalling event. And yet I dare say there light on even this heavy and enshrouding cloud. If we cannot see it, there is one who can. If anything in this world can rightly be called an accident, it was an accident that took your boy away from you.

"But they who look deepest into events connected with life and death, believe that there are no hopeless or irreparable accidents. There are cures beyond this world, and there is a physician who is equal to any demand that can be made upon his skill. The God who made can always mend. He who gave life can keep life, and keep it as well when it is sent suddenly out of this world, and by a frightful accident as when it parts with this world gradually and ample time to prepare itself and for friends to be prepared.

"The shot that laid your boy child in death, did not really put an end to his life. In an instant it brought his earthly career to a tragic close; but the same instant a new career for him began in a new world. God gave your boy his life when his life began, watched over him through all his days, and received him when apparently the spark of life went out. In the view of God there is no death. No death that is to say, to the soul. There is change of worlds, change of bodies, but no passing out of existence.

"So, dear friends, this is your comfort that your boy lives, and will live. Though he is gone from your sight, and that, God knows, is cause enough for grief, yet he is not lost to life, cared for thy the Author of his being, the heavenly Father who loves him, his life will go on in God's other and better world.

Ira Francis Perkins was born in Mt. Zion, August 13, 1886, and died at his home here on the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 9, 1902, at the age of 16 years, 2 months and 26 days. A life so young rarely furnishes many items for a biography. Frank had lived practically all his life at home. He was an affectionate son and brother and his parents, brothers and sisters, have a world of tender memories of him. Those memories constitute his biography, but they are not for the public ear or eye.

"We cannot avoid thinking of the splendid and useful work in the world this boy might have done, had he lived. And the promise of his youth been fulfilled. Let us remember that by the grace of God, his spirit, clad in a new body, will be able to perform far higher service in the world to which God has taken him. God is merciful, gracious and eternally loving. Trust your boy to him. He would be as safe with no other as with God.

"Henceforth, you have a treasure laid up in heaven, to give you thoughts of the future realm such as you have never had before. I hope that that unseen world will seem more real to you from this day onward. Live your lives as in God's sight, and by his leading, and by and by, though your boy can never come back here to you, you many go to him. And in that better world no accident will ever take him from you again.

**Handwritten: St. Line Dem. Thurs. 13 Nov. 1902

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book E, Page 105, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA