Jennie Ballard 1873 - 1902

BALLARD

Posted By: Connie Swearingen- Volunteer (email)
Date: 10/17/2021 at 15:54:26

The Onawa Gazette
21 February 1902

ANOTHER DEATH

Our community was greatly saddened to learn of the death of Miss Jennie Ballard of Kearney, Nebr. Feb. 16. The remains were brought here for burial. A very large company of friends gathered with the family at the Congregational Church Tuesday afternoon for the funeral. The services were conducted jointly by Revs. McNamara and Bassett and wore unusually appropriate and touching. A mixed choir feelingly rendered several favorite songs. The floral tributes were elaborate and exquisitely beautiful. Jennie grew to womanhood in Onawa and held the esteem of all who knew her. The bereaved parents and brothers are upheld in their great grief by the sympathy of a host of close friends.

OBITUARY

Jennie A. Ballard gladdened the home of D. M. and Angelina Ballard, in Kingston, N. Y. by her advent on Sept. 11, 1873, and now the home has been saddened by her departure for the better world. She died in Kearney, Nebr. Feb. 16, 1902, being 28 yrs. 5 mo. and 5 days of age. In 1880 the family came west and lived for one year in Cherokee, Ia. whence they moved to Marcus, Iowa, in 1881. After nine years they again changed their residence and have since 1890 until the present made their home in Onawa, Iowa, excepting the past two months which have been spent in Kearney, Nebr., in hope that some benefit might come to her health. Jennie graduated from Onawa High School under Prof. F. E. Lark in 1894. She began the study of music while the family were living in Marcus, and continued for some time under instruction of Prof. Sykes, of Onawa and afterward took up the teaching of music. She was a good singer and an excellent player. Her friends never tired hearing her either sing or play.

When about fourteen years of age she joined the Methodist Episcopal church in Marcus, and developed into a beautiful Christian woman, showing the graces of her profession by word and deed. For several years she was a singer and later organist in the Congregational church of Onawa where her services have added greatly to the strength of the church work. She was exceedingly faithful to duty and was the inspiring spirit in the choir work of that church for years.

The flowers adorning the casket are but a carrying foward of the expressions of appreciation on the part of all her friends and associates.

She was ailing for seven or eight years, and her health has been very bad during the past two years. For a longtime it has been evident that dread consumption had grasped her, never to relax its grip. When moving to Kearney, she caught cold and was never able to recover from, its effects. She bore, her sufferings patiently with Christian resignation.