OBITUARY: Jennie Gardner Eckels, 1860-1899, Mitchell County, Iowa

[Source: Mitchell County Press-News or Mason City Globe Gazette]



                       DEATH OF MRS. JENNIE ECKELS
 
Mrs. Jennie Gardner Eckels was born in the village of Wentworth, Mitchell
county, Iowa, August 9th, 1860 and died in Osage, Iowa, Feb. 9, 1899.  In
1872 her parents, George H. and Abagail L. Gardner removed to Nora Springs,
where she entered school and made rapid progress in her studies.  Here her
father died on the 8th day of June A.D. 1879.

She was a student of the Cedar Valley Seminary for two years and then
taught school for two years.  Later she was a student of the Iowa State
University and still later a student of a college in Atchinson, Kansas,
where she graduated in short hand.  She filled several important places
in Kansas as reporter.

On the 12th of January 1891, she was married to John N. Eckels of Seattle,
Wash.  In 1893, she returned to Iowa and once more resumed her work as
teacher.  She taught in McIntire and other places til March 1896.  Since
that time she has been a stenographer in the office of Gardner & Son of
Osage. She was faithful, conscientious and painstaking and worked up to
the full measure of her strength.  In fact, for years her health was not
rugged, but her wonderful willpower held her to her work and no one
realized that disease had so firm a hold on her.  She was exceedingly
patient and suffered without uttering a word of complaint.  She continued
her work when she had not enough strength to do so.

The first of December she dropped her work and began regular medical
treatment. She and all her friends thought that she would soon recuperate
and once more resume her work.  This however, was not to be. The disease
made rapid progress and sapped her strength.  She bore everything
patiently and uncomplainingly.

For years she had been a member of the Congregational church and she had
exemplified in her daily life the religion of Jesus Christ.  She was quiet
and unostentatious, but good, noble and true. I believe the Master whom
she served pays her the tribute that he did to another.  "She has done
what she could."  Of her immediate family her mother, a brother and a
little daughter Ravenna Pearl, survive her.

The funeral service was held on Saturday afternoon under the direction
of Rev. W. W. Gist.   He took as his text, "She hath done what she could,"
and he paid a warm tribute to her nobility of character and real worth
as a woman.



Copyright (c) 2002 by Marilyn O'Connor
(Note: I am not necessarily related to the subject of the obituary.)

This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives.

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