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There was a great American who immortalized the passing of the Indians.His name
was James Fenimore Cooper and his famous book was entitled " The Last of the Mohicans".
Pat Cain was the "last of the Mohicans" of Deercreek township - the last of the
pioneers of that beautiful valley. I was his family physician for forty years and
I knew him like a top. I waited on ten children at that old farm home. He had 400
acres of land - all slough. When the mallards left the Ar tic circle, they headed
down for Pat Cain's slough. He tiled every inch of it in big rubber boots from the
homestead down to Dave Doyle's ravine two miles south.
Pat Cain was a grand, patriotic man, standing six feet, two inches in his socks;
big, raw and husky, and with a gentle voice like an angel. There was never a man,
woman, or child in Deercreek township that ever heard Pat Cain use an immoral word
or say an unjust word against his neighbor. There was never a man, woman or child
that heard Pat Cain swear or blaspheme the Blessed Name of his Redeemer. He was
as honest as a priest. He was as patriotic as Abraham Lincoln and loved every sod
of America as George Washington. He was a grand type of son of the old Irish immigrant,
Simon Cain.
When I was in Iowa State university I used to teach elementary stuff under Dr. Walter
Behring, now president of the state board of health, and another superb old man
and a real medical scholar, Dr. Chase. So when I came to Clare with Bill Collins
I was all cocked and primed for literary societies. I formed one, and Pat Cain,
a real natural orator, was president, and old David Coughlin, was vice president.
Pat had only one theme - that this was not Ireland, and that we should be more American
than the Americans themselves. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the god of his idolatry.
He never quit praising the great president that saved the land for the people; that
gave homes to the people. One time I heard him orate on the victor at Flavian Amphitheater
at Rome and all he got from the Ceasar's and the Antonines was a wreath of wild
olives. He often said let us give a wreath of wild olive to the man that saved the
land the homes for the people. You know the great Irish poet and dramatist Oliver
Goldsmith says;
" Princes and lords may flourish and may fall,
A breath can take them as a breath has made,
But a bold peasantry, their county's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied."
I was at Pat's funeral. They don't stick up a little bit of paper to say this store
will be closed in an hour, out there. If you remember Irish history, the obsequies
of St. Patrick at Sloan in the country of Armagh lasted five days and all Ireland
came to the burial of that great patriot. The whole country side out there in Clare
came to Pat's funeral. he surely died a peaceful death. He knew there was one that
never lied, whose immortal promises were good and reliable and He said " everyone
that has faith in me shall never die. " That was the dying dogma of Pat cain. He
was laid in consecrated ground with the old pioneers and there they all peacefully
sleep, waiting a call from on high - that blessed call that shall awaken us all
- " Arise ye dead, and come to judgement. " Eternal rest to all their souls !
Patrick H Cain left this earth on March 31, 1940
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