Mildred Catherine (Donaldson) Guthrie

GUTHRIE, DONALDSON, WYCKOFF, MILLER

Posted By: J. Breen (email)
Date: 2/10/2016 at 17:31:47

Mrs. Guthrie, 86 Taken by Death

Mrs. Mildred Guthrie, 86, died this morning at 9:30 at her home 209 West Madison street. She had been in failing health for several years. She was a member of a prominent and pioneer Jackson township and Washington family.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 Saturday morning at the United Presbyterian church, conducted by her pastor, Rev. George Kerr. Burial will be in the Woodlawn cemetery. Funeral arrangements are in charge of the L. A. Jones funeral home.

Obituary

Mildred Donaldson Guthrie, daughter of David and Eliza (Wyckoff) Donaldson was born October 1, 1857, on a farm in Jackson township, northeast of Washington, where her parents had taken up government land in 1852. Here she attended the Pearson and Grand Prairie schools and later the Washington academy, always taking an active part in the activities of the neighborhood and the Living Lake United Presbyterian church of which her father and mother were charter members.

She had a heritage of patriotic and religious ancestry which was unusual. On her maternal side, she was a direct descendant of Peter Claussen Wyckoff, who came to this country from Holland to settle on Long Island in 1637. Her great-grandfather, Joachim {Joaquim} Wyckoff was a Revolutionary soldier, her grandfather, Cornelius Wyckoff, a solder in the war of 1812, her brother, John A Donaldson went to the Civil war from this county, her son Carl J. Guthrie served in World War I and two grandsons Edwin M and Dean D Miller, and Dr. Howard Naquin (husband of Mary Miller) and her son-in-law, Dr. Edwin M Miller are members of the armed forces in World war II.

On the paternal side her ancestry was Scotch, as her great-grandfather, Rev. David Goodwille, was one of the first Scottish ministers in this country, having been sent out by the church of Scotland in 1778 to preach to the early settlers of eastern Vermont. Her grandfather, Rev. John Donaldson, represented this same Scotch Associate Reformed (Seceder) church in New York, Vermont and Ohio. Rev. D. G. Bullions, who helped organize the first United Presbyterian church in Washington, Iowa in 1841 was a first cousin of her father.

In 1883, she was married to Robert John Guthrie, who is deceased. He was the son of Robert John and Mary (Cameron) Guthrie, Convenanters from New York. They were the parents of five children, Charlotte E who died in 1920, Sophia in 1902 and Carl James in 1931. Surviving are Denzemore, who lives in Moline and Blanche (Mrs. Edwin M Miller) of Chicago. Six grandchildren, Mary Jean Guthrie of.....

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.....unsettled and told in an interesting way the life of the early settler. She was fond of riding and kept until recent years her side saddle and riding clothes. In winter she dressed in habits which covered them from head to toe, she and her mother would ride miles to help some neighbor who was ill. In the yard of their farm home, her father built a log cabin which was used for many years by friends and relatives from the east who were traveling through this part of Iowa on their way west. Such was the life of an early pioneer in this part of Iowa. Here people knew what true hospitality meant kindness and interest in their fellow men was so deeply instilled into the children of this pioneer family that it became a part of their lives. The faith of their Scottish ancestors was a heritage which they were taught to value, to be proud of, but never to boast about. So the seed of the early Convenanters which was planted early in the 16th century in Scotland was brought first to Vermont, then to southern Ohio and to southeastern Iowa.

Washington Evening Journal, June 15, 1944