Marion County AlArchives Obituaries.....Ballard, Sadie (Byrd), Mrs.  July 5, 1894
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Veneta McKinney http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00016.html#0003775 April 24, 2010, 8:38 pm

Hamilton Free Press, Aug 2, 1894
OBITUARY
	These lines are written to perpetuate the memory of a good woman.  Mrs. 
Sadie Ballard (Nee BYRD), wife of W. A. Ballard was born July 7th, 1854 
and “fell asleep” July 5th 1894.  Thus it was that she lacked but two days of 
having completed a pilgrimage of forty years.  No written sketch can do justice 
to the spotless life and precious memory of this noble Christian woman.  Of her 
it may be truly said,
None knew her but to love her,
None named her but to praise
	Sister Ballard professed faith in Christ at the age of seventeen years 
and when twenty-two years old, she joined the M. E. Church, South.  In the 
church of her choice, she lived a consistent and devoted member until God 
said, “it is enough’ come up higher.”  Sister Ballard was no ordinary woman.  
After serving as her pastor for nearly eight months, this writer learned to 
regard her as one of the best women he ever knew. She was loyal to the church 
and her partner.  Her house was the preacher’s home, and how pleasant it was to 
go there, this writer will never forget.
	Being of a modest and retiring disposition, hers was a quiet, 
unassuming life, yet it was a life fraught with power for good.  A very worthy 
and important part of her life work is exemplified in the womanly character of 
her two surviving daughter, whose lives were so skillfully trained by her 
motherly influence.  Surely in after years her children will “rise up and call 
her blessed.”  She was a devoted wife, a loving mother, a constant friend, a 
neighbor obliging and true –indeed in every relation of life, she acted well 
her part.
	Sister Ballard seemed to have had a presentment of her approaching 
dissolution, even before she was taken sick.  Sometime in the spring or early 
summer she told her husband that she would not live to see the present crop 
completed.  So it was; her words came true.
	She suffered long and severely, too, but like the Christian woman that 
she was, she murmured not.
	Often and freely did she talk of death, never expressing a desire to 
get well, but ever declaring her readiness and willingness to depart.  And as 
the final hour drew nigh, she entered the “valley of the shadow of death” 
without a fear, even “as one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and 
lies down to pleasant dreams.”
	Sister Ballard has passed through the pearly gates into the eternal 
city.  Earth is poorer and Heaven is richer now that she is gone.  Her 
sufferage are ended.  She has entered into the joys of the Lord.
Today she bathes her weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble rolls
Across her peaceful breast.
	Today she feasts upon ambrosial fruits that grow in richest clusters 
hard by the limpid waters of the river of life.  Her pastor being absent, the 
funeral services were conducted by Bro. JOHN ARNOLD, who preached the funeral 
sermon from Job 14th chap. and 14th v.  After which a large concourse of 
sorrowing relatives and friends followed her remains to their last resting 
place in the cemetery at Smyrna Church.
	May the God of all grace, comfort, and sustain the lonely husband, the 
motherless daughters, the brothers and sister, and all that inner circle of 
stricken hearts.  May they all meet Sister Ballard  “in the Sweet By-and By”
	And to those who may read this humble sketch, let me say, “Be ye also 
ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
	Her pastor, W. L. HENDRICKS, Hamilton, la. July 24th, 1894



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