HATFIELD, Helen (1841-1907)

HATFIELD

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 12/9/2018 at 00:08:56

Helen Hatfield
(January 20, 1841 – February 19, 1907)

Indianola Herald, Indianola, IA., Thurs., Feb 28, 1907, p.6, col.4
Mrs. J. L. Hatfield
Helen Carpenter Hatfield was born in Athens, Ohio, Jan. 20th, 1841 and was buried in the same city Feb. 19th, 1907, having rounded out a life of 66 years and 26 days. Her death was caused by a sudden attack of pulmonary hemorrhage from the effect of which she remained unconscious for about an hour and then quietly sank to rest. She was the daughter of Dr. Eber G. and Mary K. Carpenter. Her parents were of New England extraction and among the pioneers of the state of Ohio.
The subject of this sketch was educated in the public schools of her native town and began a course of instruction at a Female College at Oxford, Ohio, which course however, was soon cut short by a severe illness from which she was a long time in recovering.
Early in life she became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and faithfully continued in this relation until the time of her death. On the 27th day of February 1867 she was married to J. L. Hatfield, then a member of the Missouri and Arkansas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; with him she spent three and one half years in Missouri as the wife of an itinerant minister, when she again returned to Athens, Ohio, with her husband who had been elected professor of Latin in the Ohio University situated at that place. Here as the wife of a college professor she lived for twelve years. There are many who were students in that venerable institution during these twelve years but now gray haired men filling honorable positions throughout the land who will hear with much sorrow of the event that gives rise to this sketch. Since the year 1883 her residence has been at Indianola, Iowa.
She was a person of remarkable mental activity, quick to grasp truth and thorough in it comprehension. Her body and soul partook of the activity of her mind and she was ever ready with sympathy and kind ministration to comfort the afflicted. She loved her family, her friends and the church and often regretted that the limitations imposed by her afflictions prevented her from accomplishing more good in the world. But not her work is done. She has passed beyond the shadows into the eternal dawning. The deceased was the mother of five children, one of whom died in infancy. Those surviving are Dr. G. E. Hatfield of Lacona, Iowa, Ed T. Hatfield, Esq. of Huston, Texas, Dr. Lena Hatfield of Chicago and Mrs. Florence H. Stanley of Gardena, California. Her surviving husband, J. L. Hatfield, is the only representative of the family remaining in Indianola.