Madison County AlArchives Obituaries.....Watkins, William Patton July 22, 1882
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Kenneth Stacy klstacyfamily@aol.com December 14, 2006, 10:45 am

The Huntsville Weekly Democrat, 26 July 1882
WATKINS.—In Huntsville, Alabama, Saturday, July 22, 1882, DR. WILLIAM PATTON 
WATKINS, in his 28th year.
  Dr. Watkins was the only son of our esteemed friends, Mr. and Mrs. James 
Lawrence Watkins, Sr., of this city.  He was born and brought up here and his 
virtues—obedience to his parents, reverence for his elders, and ability, 
generosity, freedom from even the small  vices, and circumspect deportment—won 
the love and respect of all who knew him.  Having finished his educational 
course at Washington-Lee University and the University of Virginia, he studied 
medicine, graduate, and engaged in hospital practice in the city of New York, 
where he obtained eligible positions in three of the principle Hospitals after 
rigid competitive examinations.  His personal and professional character 
attracted the attention of Dr. T. Gaillard Thomas, a New York physician of 
world-wide fame, who invited him to become his partner, after he should 
perfect himself in some specialties in a few months’ study and practice in 
hospitals in Dublin, London, Paris and Vienna.  He came home about two weeks 
ago, to see his parents before sailing for Europe.  His health was delicate, 
he was attacked with peritonitis, and, in three days, died, causing a shock to 
the community rarely experienced.  How sad that one, who had so brilliant a 
prospect of honor, fame and fortune, should be so suddenly cut off, in the 
bloom of a young mental and moral manhood.  
  The large attendance at this funeral, on Sunday afternoon last, enforced the 
high public appreciation of him.  The funeral services were conducted by Rev. 
Dr. J. M. Banister, in the Church of the Nativity, of which he was a member, 
and in the Huntsville cemetery. 
  A beautiful incident invested the gloom of his grave with a halo of glory.  
The sky had been o’ercast with clouds.  Suddenly, during the burial service, 
the sun shone out and created a rainbow in an Eastern cloud—just as when, 
first, 
  “God set His opal rainbow in the clouds, 
  A token, when His judgments are abroad,
  Of His perpetual covenant of peace.”
  So, we thought, “the Sun of Righteousness arose, with healing on his wings”, 
for the bereaved, and, on their cloud of pent-up tears, painted the bow of 
promise, the beacon of hope, the covenant of peace, symbolized in
  “The rainbow, that, o’er Noah’s sacrifice,
  Stamped on the morning clouds the smile of God.”


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