Acadia County Louisiana Archives Obituaries.....Vega, Maud Sophia nee Wathen - March 11, 1912 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Mary K. Creamer marykcreamer.00@gmail.com October 27, 2021, 2:08 am source: The Donaldsonville Chief. (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, March 30, 1912, page 1 A TRIBUTE. In Memory of Mrs. Maud Wathen Vega. C.A.J., in Lebanon (Ky.) Enterprise: Sweet mother, in a minute's span Death parts thee and my love of thee. Youth and the opening rose ,ay look like things to glorious for decay, And smile at thee - but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize the prey. Death, that mysterious separation of the soul and body, the immortal from the mortal, the saddest scene upon which we are called to look, came with the greatest possible bitterness to the parents, relatives and friends of the family, when it was known that Mrs. Maud Wathen Vega had died at St. Anthony's Infirmary, in the city of Louisville, Monday, following a surgical operation. So little was it felt that the simple operation she was to undergo would be attended with danger that she was unaccompanied by her husband, or other member of her father's family than her mother. She never rallied from the effects of the anesthetic administered and died two hours after the operation. Mrs. Maud Wathen Vega was the second daughter of Hon. and Mrs. R. N. Wathen, of this city. She was educated at St. Catherine's Academy, near Springfield, an old and well-known seat of learning for girls and young ladies, receiving such education and accomplishments as the competency possessed by her father rendered him so able to bestow upon her. About ten years ago, upon what was then supposed to be her death-bed, she became the wife of Dr. Sidney V. Vega, of Donaldsonville, La., a young professional man of agreeable presence and a most excellent and worthy gentleman. The union formed, though under an apparent cloud of approaching dissolution, was not destined, however, to be so soon severed. The bride recovered and went with her young husband to the Southland to make and bless his home. To the union were born four children, two of whom preceded her to the grave, and two little boys of three and eight years, respectively, are left to long for a mother's tender care and to learn, mayhap, from bitter realization, that "God can give us but one mother." Mrs. Vega never at any time enjoyed robust health, neither before nor after her marriage, yet was always patient in her suffering. As a girl and as a young lady - we can write it without injustice to, or disparagement of, others - she was the fairest, 'though the frailest, flower of a lovely bouquet that budded from the parent stem. It is such the angels so often luck so soon. At the age of thirty-three, a young wife and a young mother, worshiped by her husband, idolized by her father and mother, the sunshine of her children's life, and the inspiration of love to her brothers and sisters is dead. Dead! What a hollow sound! The strong man who has and does, face without flinching everything that comes to him in the course of life, is bowed before the bitterness of this stroke, and quivers as does the leaf of the restless aspen, while the mother who could endure and do her full part in the theatre of life, is overcome completely and must wait for time to stay the sweep of her sorrow. But the "bruised reed He will not break, nor quench the smoking flax." Reared in the bosom of the Holy Catholic church, Mrs. Vega was a devout worshiper and communicant at its altars. Its teachings she exemplified in her life; in faith she looked up to Him in whose bosom she has found rest free from the pain that so much beset her in life. She knew not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; She only knew she could not drift Beyond His love and care. Her father and her mother, both of whom have passed beyond the meridian, can therefore muse over the memory of her beautiful life that has ended and nurse the consolation these thought affords, but within their ears must ever sound the infantile cry, "I don't want mamma to go to heaven." Oh, harrowing necessity! Overwhelming sadness, to explain to an eight year old child that its mother is dead. You can bring no consolation to it by telling it she is in heaven. In vain do they tell him his mamma has gone to heaven. "I don't want mamma to go to heaven." No! A little child that lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb- What should it know of death? The death of a young wife and a young mother awakens within the hearts of all men and women the tenderest (sic) sentiments of sadness and sympathy, and when it takes on the form of semitragedy (sic) its sadness is overwhelming. So it is, we are born, we die. The beginning and the ending. The common fate of all. We respond to the great law of nature and the world goes on unmindful of it. These things are occurring around us daily, but to us they are merely matters of statistics until we are touched. When the shadow of death falls across our threshold or across those of our immediate friends and neighbors, then we reckon not as the statistician. Then it is that we feel the very presence of death, when it presents its bitter cup to lips that must quaff it, while they lay away the remains of the stricken one in the ground she knew and loved, in the land of her father and her father's father, far, though it be, from the home of her adoption, where the wild magnolia blooms and the mocking bird sings, and where her tender lover husband will wait in vain for her coming and miss her footfall at the door. But there will be a shrine for him to visit in St. Augustine's cemetery, just above the brow of the pretty little lake. It is for the living we write, not the dead. Words of praise cannot lend a flush to the cheeks that have paled. Tender reflections upon one's many virtues can no more accelerate the pulsation of a heart that is stilled; nor can pleasing eulogies "soothe the dull, cold ear of death." But in this tribute to a beautiful life, to which we have been moved by the deepest sympathy for those who are crushed beneath the awful weight of a great affliction, and especially for the father and the mother, who are my friends, and who are wearing beyond the time, the years, in which one has strength to bear what ills may come, if what we have written can even supply a minimum of balm to assuage their bitterness and calm their souls, then we have done all we have hoped for in this little freewill offering of a tribute to a beautiful life so suddenly ended. - Lebanon, Ky., March 12, 1912 Additional Comments: NOTE: www.findagrave.com memorial # 103686342 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/acadia/obits/v/vega8345gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/ File size: 7.1 Kb