BEER, James Madison: Died 1911

BEER, GIBSON, BELL

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 8/24/2016 at 17:21:38

**Handwritten: St. Line Dem. Thurs. 23 March 1911

DEATH OF MADISON BEER

An Honored and Respected Citizen Has Passed Away

Mr. J. Madison Beer, whose critical condition was mentioned in our last issue, died Friday night, March 17, at 11 o'clock. He had been ill about two weeks, after the last attack of paralysis. The funeral was held at the Christian church at 2 o'clock Sunday afternoon, the attendance filling the church to its full capacity.

The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Chas. E. Perkins, assisted by Rev. C.A. Field. The choir consisted of Messrs. C.R. McCrary and S.B. DeHart and Mesdames E.E. Sherman and Anderson Patten, with Arthur Clark as organist. The pall bearers were his Odd Fellow brothers, H.E. Duckworth, Geo. H. Craig, John Wright, J.C. Calhoun, E.C. Coombs and B.F. Truax. There was a profusion of beautiful flowers on the casket. The burial rites were performed by the Odd Fellows and Rebekahs.

Mr. Beer was a kindly, upright, good man and had a large circle of personal friends, as well as relative, whose hearts are saddened by his death.

Rev. Mr. Perkins' discourse was in part as follows:

James Madison Beer, son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Beer, who were persons of English birth, was born in Belleville, St. Clair county, Ill., Jan. 13, 1837. When an infant of three months, he was brought by his parents to Keosauqua, who settled on land with in two miles of town down the river. And on that very spot, as boy and man his home remained to the day of his death. He was one of seven brothers of whom Mr. James Monroe Beer, is the last survivor. There of that band of brothers served their country as soldiers in the Federal army during the civil war.

Mr. Beer was married June 26, 1858, to Nancy Jemima Gibson. The two were happy partners in life for near 37 years, until the wife's death, about 16 years ago. They were blessed with a family of six children, viz., Frank, Charley, Henry S., Carrie V. (Mrs. James Bell), Thomas Walter and Van Curtis. Of these, four survive; those called by death, being Frank and Van Curtis.

Mr. Beer united with the M.E. church at Mt. Zion 32 years ago. Some (25 years) ago, he transferred his membership to the Christian church in Keosauqua. He was a member of the order of Odd Fellows.

For three or four years, Mr. Beer's health has been gradually failing. The end came very peacefully Friday, the 17th of March. His age at the time of his death was 74 years, two months and four days.

There are older people in Keosauqua and vicinity, than Mr. Madison Beer; a good many of them; but the number of those who have spent as many years here as he had spent, must be very few. In the spring of 1837, when he was brought here a baby, there were very few white families. His earnest experiences were of frontier life, and his memories covered almost the entire development of the country from a wilderness to a civilization that might be centuries old, so far as appearances go. As a boy, the sight of Red men going up and down the Des Moines in their canoes, or traversing the forest trails was a not infrequent spectacle. The woods and prairies abandoned with game and the wirers teemed with fish. Looking back to that time, one thinks of the elements of charm and adventure in the life of a boy growing up amid such surroundings. But we must not forget that as the lives of the pioneer fathers and mothers were perforce given over to heavy toil, so the lives of the children in the families of the first comers, must have had close acquaintance with the serious side of existence. There were many deprivations, among them the entire absence of school opportunities.

The little boy grew up with the schooling of the woods and the rivers; woodcraft and watercraft, of the field and garden; best of all, the schooling of a true home; but of school-room teaching he had none at all. This does not mean that he was an uneducated man. Education is learning; the accumulation of facts, progressive knowledge of the world as one has to do with the world. And the ways of obtaining this learning are more than one. Many a man and woman have been clearly entitled to be considered educated, who have never known class work and school drill. Madison Beer was an intelligent, enlightened man, in spite of the fact that in his boyhood he never went to school.

I have no doubt in that frontier country home the boy early learned to work, and that long here he came of age he was bearing a man's share in labor with his father and brothers. A country boy is not very liable to grow up in idleness, unless he has a positive talent in that direction, and in the case of Madison Beer, I judge by the outcome. He has lived in this community 74 years, or practically all his life. By honest industry he has added to his first little patrimony until he was possessor of a noble farm of several hundred acres. Our community is poorer by the passing of this good man.

His life's labors are done, but the influence of his life of sturdy industry and moral excellence, have not perished, will not perish. There is an earthly futurity for the good man, the good woman, if not an earthly immortality. "The (good) men do lives after them:" Mark Antony to the contrary, notwithstanding. The descendants of the excellent, inherit their parents' virtues and noble qualities, carry these forward into the coming years.

"The memory of the just
Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust."

As for our departed brother and friend, we do not think of his life as having undergone extinction. As the sacred hymnist says. -
"We cannot think of them as dead,
Who walk with us no more;
Along the path of life we tread
They have but gone before."

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book G, Page 179, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA