Section 46:  Two Funerals & a Wedding

1871 was to me an eventful year. With the close of that year my term as Judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District expired. Our little daughter Virginia died. My Mother died and our daughter Mary was married to Rev. T. J. Sherrard, and all these events occurred within a month and a half of the end of the year.

Our little girl, being the youngest, was the pet of the family, possessing a vigorous constitution and always healthy with an exuberance of animal spirits and an unusually affectionate disposition. She flitted through the house among the family like a sunbeam. At her fourth birthday she was a well developed, bright faced, happy child, of loving nature and often played through the live long day if she had companions of her age, and no one could be fonder of her playmates. Anne Rhea was one of her favorites. On any controverted question, Anne could always bring her into subjection by threatening to go home. When playing on the pavement in front of the office, she would occasionally rush in and take me around the neck and the next minute her merry laugh would be heard out among her companions. A wailing cry at this time was rarely heard from her lips, and when heard was a sure sign she was hurt or wounded in feeling, but she was not a crying child. Her constant activity made her a good sleeper and when night came she needed no rocking to sleep. I recollect of many times as she finished her supper her eyes would close and her bright little face would sink on to the table and I have frequently carried her to bed without her waking up. We would hear of her no more till greeted by her musical little laugh when she got awake in the morning.

Along in November we had her vaccinated, and while her arm was still sore and inflamed she got sick. One Saturday evening when I went in to supper her older sisters were hauling her in her basket wagon in the dining room. She did not look well and I noticed a peculiar faraway look in her eyes. We thought there was more the matter than the fever caused by the vaccination and sent for the doctor. He seemed to think the trouble might be caused by the sore arm, which was a good deal inflamed, but said he could tell better by the next morning.

When he came back in the morning he said she had symptoms of scarlatina but thought it might be light, but said it would take time to tell into what form of the disease it might develop.

From that time on she was carefully nursed and watched day and night. Sunday and Monday passed and by that time Doctor Ross admitted that she had the most malignant form of the disease, and we felt that her life hung in the balance. At one time on Monday afternoon, we hoped that she was better, but by evening we found our hopes fallacious and were forced to the conclusion that she was a mortally sick child. She was restless and often got up and walked over the bed and sometimes on the floor.

One evening Hattie was leaning over the bed when she reached up and caught her around the neck, saying, "Oh, Hattie, Hattie, your poor little sister is very sick." Neighbor women came in and stayed at night. On Tuesday night old Mrs. Aldringer had come and I lay down in the bed in the little west room. Hattie and Emily had gone to bed. Virginia got up and walked across the floor; in a few minutes after she lay down the mysterious change, the precursor of death appeared on her face. Mother called me. As soon as I got to her bed I saw she was dying. In a few minutes her fine, sensitive little spirit had gone out from us to bloom in the bowers of Paradise forever. It was half past nine o'clock in the evening of November 15th, 1871.

The children got up. Hattie and Emily were quite broken up, and a somber shadow rested on our house for many days. On the following Thursday we took her to the graveyard and buried her by the side of her little sister and on the marble stone at her head was engraven "And there shall be no more death."

Rob was away at school and we did not bring him home to the funeral. It was a severe affliction to the family -- so sudden had been her sickness and death, we could hardly realize that she was gone. But it is a wise dispensation of Providence that time mitigates sorrow and heals all such wounds, and while now she is not forgotten her bright young life remains as a pleasant memory. We had mourned the loss of two children before, but they had passed away before they were a year old and had not the associations with them that we had with Virginia. She had been with us four years, two months and ten days, and had become a favorite in the family.

My Mother was a good sized woman, rather slender but active and of a nervous temperament, possessing a good mind and was a fluent talker and a good reader; was an affectionate Mother, was unusually kind in sickness and was often sent for to see sick neighbors and had excellent judgment in administering medicine and suggesting remedies for sick children, but in serious cases advised calling in the doctor. Till after middle life while her children were young, she was subject to sick headache and among my earliest recollections was being taken out to play in the orchard so Mother could have an afternoon sleep, but ordinarily she did her own work in the house and took care of her children. It was always a gloomy time with me when Mother had the headache.

We were always an early rising family. In the fall and winter we usually ate our breakfast by candle-light. I believe I was the most sleepy-headed one of the family, but when I got fairly awake and had my breakfast, I was but as lively as the rest.

As Mother grew older she became a healthy woman and had charge of the house. She raised, besides Rachel Haggerty, two poor children -- girls who had when quite young been left without homes, and both did well. Her influence in the neighborhood was considerable and was exercised for good. In fact, until she became quite old she always had charge of children, either her own or girls she had taken or her grandchildren. Robert's children were in her charge for a while after his first wife's death and last Oliver's James and Anna, and all who were under her care loved her and revere her memory, and I think none will forget the effort made by her to impress on their minds religious truths and correct moral habits.

By my Father's will she and her youngest daughter were left a home in the old stone mansion, but after Oliver came back a widower to live in the valley, they both lived with him and took care of his children till he married his third wife. Then the old Armstrong house was moved out into the lot in front of his house and there Mother lived till her death. Father died in 1845 and she survived him more than twenty-six years.

In 1852 in the fall she came out and stayed with us through that winter. At that time she was a pretty smart old woman and took great pleasure in teaching our Mary, then about five years old, to read and commit to memory her questions. I think before she went away Mary had learned quite a number of questions in the shorter catechism. After Robert came out in the spring and took her home, she frequently visited around among her relations and her house was a kind of a home for Oliver's children and our Robert when he was down there. They were company for her and Rachel Jane, and their evenings were usually spent down there. When visiting in the valley I made my home with them.

As she advanced to eighty, her memory and her eyesight became impaired, but she had generally good health and seemed to be contented, but when I was with her she talked a great deal about my Father and often wondered why she lived so long when all her associates and companions of her age had gone. On the 3d of March, 1868, her daughter, Rachel Jane died, but her mind had failed and her memory was so broken up that she did not feel it as she would have done ten years before. She seemed only to realize that something had happened and half the time could not mind what it was.

I went down to Sister's funeral and when I could get her attention fixed on something that had occurred when she was young, she could converse but bring her to talk about recent events and her mind would wander and she could not collect her thoughts to carry on a conversation.

As stated, Gran McIlwain took charge of her and lived with her till she died. After the death of her daughter she took little interest in anything; lay in bed and slept more than half the time and rarely left home -- I think never only as far as Oliver's. In this way she lingered on till the 29th day of November, 1871, and without any perceptible sickness, breathed away her life and was laid in the grave beside my Father, wanting two days less than two months of being eighty-nine years of age, and her death was only fourteen days after the death of her little granddaughter.

She had long wanted to depart; she had survived all the associates of her young days, felt alone in the world. The last few years of her life she merely existed. When around she could talk about her young life, but to her the present was almost a blank. Her hearing was good till the last. I was glad when I heard that my dear old Mother was at rest. The next time I went to the valley I went to see her grave and was startled by the number of grave stones over my relations.

Although Mary recovered her usual health after she came home from Vassar she never went to school again. She was then a pretty good scholar and in the course of the next year I understood she had been receiving attention from Rev. T. J. Sherrard who was about finishing his course at Princeton Theological Seminary and they contemplated getting married in the fall of 1871.

On account of the death of her sister and my Mother, the wedding was private. Early in the morning of the 21st day of December, 1871, they were married in our house -- a cold morning, and the same day started down to Steubenville to his father's, and we lost another member of our family -- or at least the circle was again broken. She had been at home with us two years and we read the same books and talked about them and she had become an intelligent companion, and her departure made a great void in the house; but she married a good man in whom we had implicit confidence and we rejoiced that she was settled for life and have even learned to believe that she is happy and that her family relations are altogether satisfactory, blessed as she is with four bright children.