Newton-Clarke County GaArchives Obituaries.....Wood, Mrs. Mary R. May 30 1874 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Phyllis Thompson http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002524 June 17, 2004, 8:11 pm The Georgia Enterprise, July 3, 1874 OBITUARY MRS. MARY R. WOOD, widow and relic of Honorable Cary Wood deceased, died at the residence of her son-in-law, Mr. William H. Gaither, in the county of Newton, on the morning of the 30th of May, 1874, after a long protracted and lingering illness. Mrs. Wood was born on the 18th day of September, 1803, in the county of Clark, in this State. Her maiden name was Billups, a family well known and greatly esteemed in Georgia. In her early womanhood she was married to Mr. Cary Wood, then of the town of Athens, in Clark county. About the time, or soon after their marriage, the county of Newton was organized and the county site fixed at the place which was then named and called Covington. To this place Mr. Wood came with his family, among the first settlers, indeed, while the embryo town was yet a forest, and commenced a mercantile business. Not many years after their location at Covington, God in his abundant mercy and goodness, called them to a true and evangelical repentance, and made known to each of them His saving grace, and Mr. Wood and his then young and excellent wife, became members of the household of faith, and united themselves with what was then called and known as the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Wood was an earnest, honest man, diligent in business, and his good wife was to him a helpmate indeed, and upon them the blessings of God abode. The efforts made by them to provide properly for their household prospered, and from comparative poverty, Mr. Wood, became a man of wealth. In the year 1830 the writer came to Covington a mere boy to live and labor, a stranger among strangers. Then it was his good fortune at an early day to form the acquaintance of Mr. Wood and his family, and they became to him as a dear brother and sister. He was permitted to hold with them the most kindly and intimate relations, and know them well; and often in his struggles in life, has the writer had cause to bless God for the gift of friends so kind and true. With them towards him there was no shadow of turning-always the same cordial and hearty. Children were born to them, some of whom died in their infancy, but although they wept, "they did not mourn as they that had no hope." God took the lambs of the flock to his own loving bosom.- The laterborn children lived. Four daughters and one son have survived both their parents; and both the father and mother lived to see each of their children well married and settled in life. Mr. Wood died suddenly of disease of the heart on the 6th day of May, 1857, seventeen years and a few days before his wife, the subject of this notice. The writer has often since the death of her husband, conversed with her, sometimes when troubles encompassed her, (as they did all of us in the South during the late war,) and although she in common with all others felt it sorely, yet her faith in God never wavered. She would say "God is my Father; he knows what is best." Never desponding, always cheerful, God was to her a Refuge, the Shadow of a great Rock to hide her from the storm. The last few years of her life she spent mostly, with her youngest daugher, Mrs. Gaither, in the country, often however visiting her children and friends at Covington. Mrs. Wood was a calm, consistent Christian lady, patient to her affliction, and of unfeigned faith, suffering as well as doing the will of God, until the end came, and then in full assurance of a well founded hope, she passed in mature old age from the loving family circle below to her reward in Heaven. J. J. FLOYD This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 4.1 Kb