REGISTER OF
OLD SETTLERS
BOOK ONE
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MUSCATINE COUNTY IOWA REGISTER OF | |
Source: REGISTER OF OLD SETTLERS , BOOK One, page 382
submitted by Neal Carter, October 13, 2007
DEATH OF MRS. EMILY H. CHURCH At Muscatine, June 7, 1893, at 2 p. m., of consumption, Mrs. Emily H. Church, aged 30 years, 1 month and 19 days.
Thus in lines as brief as this beautiful bride of Death would have written them, Time closes the earthly record of one of the noblest lives that have graced our humanity. She would not have thought that more could be said; but those who partook of the charms of this life and feel to-day that so great and sweet a part of their own has departed, are wreathing many a living immortelle of memory to place on her tomb.
The life of Mrs. Church was made up of character rather than of events. She was born April 18, 1854, the daughter of S. A. Foulke, Esq., of this city, who came to Muscatine during her childhood. It will be recalled by many that she was the brilliant valedictorian of the High School class of 1872. Society remembers her also as the belle of Muscatine, owing her queenly reign to no factitious claims, but to the unrivaled charms of person and the sweetest graces of her sex.
On October 11, 1876, she was married to W. W. Church, who died in December, 1877, leaving as a precious token of this sadly brief union, a daughter, Woodie W., who was born September 21, 1877. The care of this infant daughter, added to the delicacy of her own health, compelled a comparative retirement from society; and upon this situation there early dawned the consciousness of her dire disease and inevitable fate. From that time her life was a prayer and a resolve, God helping her, to live until her daughter, in the strength of maturity could dispense with a mother’s care. It would be a profane hand to draw aside the curtain from those days and years of maternal devotion.
A year and a half ago, Mrs. Church sought the salutary air of Tryon, North Carolina, both for herself and her delicate charge. She wrote from there that she knew her days were numbered, and she wished to take her last look of earth in the faces of her loved ones at home. Hope was held out to her of a respite in some remedial agencies at Rochester, N. Y., and last September she sought this promising resort. Seven weeks ago saw the hopeless face turned homeward. Owing to sickness at her father’s, she and her daughter were received at her sister’s, Mrs. W. C. Schenck, where all that loving care and medical skill could render, were ministered until her illuminated sense blended earth with heaven. Conscious to the last, her dying words revealed the happiest realization of immortality.
Besides her daughter and parents, deceased leaves four sisters and two brothers: Mrs. T. S. Stewart, Mrs. W. C. Schenck and Miss Hattie R. Foulke, all of this city, and Mrs. F. W. Shaw, of Alverado, Texas; and Mrs. W. B. Foulke, of New Orleans, and G. W. Foulke, of Waukesha.
The appointments for the burial will be announced in to-morrow’s issue.
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