Woodruff, Henry 1836 – 1904

WOODRUFF, KILBOURNE

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/19/2024 at 21:00:44

Source: Decorah Republican Aug. 11, 1904 Page 2

DEATH OF HENRY WOODRUFF.
Founder and Many Years Publisher of the Decorah Journal.
Mention was made in the “Personals" last week of the presence in this city of Carl and Miss Nellie Woodruff, son and daughter of Henry Woodruff, founder and formerly editor of the Decorah Journal. When they left home the health of their father, which had long been feeble, was such that only a few months evidently remained to him; but it was not supposed that death was close at hand. Saturday evening a telegram called them home, and they departed at once. Soon after leaving a second message said death had come to him at 4:30 o’clock in the afternoon.
Henry Woodruff was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, October 20, 1836, and began learning the printer’s trade when about fifteen years old. His first work was in the office of the “Anti-Slavery Bugler” in Salem, O., where he came in contact with many famous Abolitionists of that day and imbibed many of their sentiments. Subsequently he worked in Warren, where he graduated from the High School. Later he attended the Western Reserve College at Hudson (now known as a University and located at Cleveland,) from which he graduated in 1865. During this time he served a few months in the Union Army, and in September of the latter year he married Miss Cordelia Kilbourne. In 1867 he came west, and located in St. Paul where he did editorial work on the Daily Press, also for a part of two years conducted a daily paper at Stillwater. Early in November, 1874, he came to Decorah, and became owner of a printing office which had served G. W. Haislet for his “Ventilator,” from which for a time he printed the “Ike.” In 1879 he started the Decorah Journal, which he continued to publish until 1891, when he sold it to its present publisher, Mr. Coutant, and removed to Franklin Park, Ill., one of the suburbs of Chicago, where he has since resided. There he resumed his life occupation, and published the Franklin Park Press News, a newspaper of local character, until ill health made it necessary to turn the labor over to his youngest daughter, Miss Helen Woodruff.
Mr. Woodruff was a capable writer, possessed of considerable literary ability and an honest man. In his early school years he cultivated the muses, and earned no little reputation thereby. In 1873 he accepted the task of writing the Alumni poem for Western Reserve College, and twice while in Minnesota he read annual poems before the Minnesota State Editorial Association. Except that for some time he has been an invalid we know little of his career since leaving Decorah. His wife and three children survive him. The eldest daughter, known to Decorah people as Gertrude, is married. Every remembrance of him by those who knew him while living in Decorah is kindly and courteous in every respect, and they will all have a hearty sympathy with a most, lovable family now so sorely bereaved.
Funeral services were held on Tuesday last.