Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Webber, Antoinette C. 1890
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Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net July 2, 2013, 5:31 pm

The Ionia Standard, Friday, April 18, 1890

Mrs. Antoinette C., beloved wife of Hon. George W. Webber, died shortly after 
six o’clock on Friday evening last, and on Tuesday was laid at rest in the 
family lot in Highland park cemetery.  The funeral services were conducted at 
the house by Rev. George D. Lindsay, assisted by Rev. Job Pierson, a friend of 
the deceased of long standing.  The floral decorations at the house were 
profuse and beautiful; especially were the floral tributes from the friends, 
exceedingly handsome, noteworthy being the decorations placed on the casket, a 
garland of white rosebuds; a broken column, made of yellow and white roses and 
primroses; an artistic piece with the mottoes “Sister” and “At Rest,” of 
purple immortality; a cross of calla lilies and roses; a pillow of cream and 
white lilies and cream and pink roses; the whole making a truly beautiful 
display.

Mrs. L. P. Brock, Mrs. Tunison, and Messrs. W. E. Kelsey and James A. Latta 
rendered the music.  Hon. A. J. Webber, brother-in-law, and J. T. Webber, H. 
B. Webber and John A. Webber, nephews of the deceased were the pallbearers.  
The sermon was a kindly tribute to a deserving lady, and we give it below:

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, temperance.—Gal. V: 22.

When Sir Wm. Hamilton, the great Scotch philosopher said there is nothing 
great in this world but man, and nothing great in man but mind, he spoke a 
truth which receives the most striking confirmation in death.  The reach of 
life’s forces is never measured until they have spent themselves in deeds and 
ceased from their activities.  The scepter that holds a vast empire in 
subjection, the grasp that commands a mighty army, the genius that embodies it 
conceptions in the enduring monuments of art, science and literature, the 
enterprise that harnesses the elements and converts the worlds with its 
throbbing energies into a huge machine shop, all this is the mind of man 
manifesting its powers in the control and direction of the multitudinous 
forces of life.

However, when we come into the realm of woman, greatness takes upon itself 
another cast.  Mind to her, instead of taking outward forms of magnitude and 
grandeur, crystallizes into prismatic virtues through which the sunlight of 
heaven streaming is broken up into the  varied and beauteous coloring of the 
bow of faith, hope and love.  One such bow of celestial coloring is found in 
the fruit of the Sprit—in love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance—the very essence of Christianity, 
the substance of eternal life.

It is interesting to observe that, in an age when empire, conquest, just and 
avarice were the controlling passions of mankind, the Great Teacher set the 
stamp of divine approval upon what the world treated with contempt and obioquy—
the humble, the meek, the gentle, the broken and bruised reed.  In His own 
life He gathered up all these despised elements of personal character and 
wrought them into such exquisite symmetry and such unapproachable beauty that, 
ever since, the true standard of greatness has not been the colossal form of 
Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon, of Plato, or Newton, or Bacon, but the 
guileless character of a little child that knows not how to resent wrong or 
cherish malice, or wield a scepter, or amass a fortune, or aspire to fame.

It is not strange then that woman, with her gentler, kindlier, more 
sympathetic, more childlike nature, should shine as the stars in their courses 
in her embodiment of the divine elements of life.  It is only to be expected 
that here if anywhere, we shall find the most radiant light, the most 
celestial beauty, the most sterling worth, the most enduring and substantial 
character, the truest and purest and best elements of that which in man is 
greatest.

In the life and character of our deceased sister, out of respect for whom we 
now hold these last solemn rites, we see blended the graces and charms and 
beauties of one of the world’s choicest women.  In the fruit of the spirit she 
was more plentiful than is the common fortune of her sex.  She abounded in 
deeds of love, was inspired by a never-dying hope, and controlled by a sweet 
spirit of pervasive peace.  In long-suffering amid trial of infirmity and 
unrest she has strewn her path with sweet violets of joy and praise.  In 
kindness and goodness her tender nature and gentle disposition have gone out 
in acts of sympathy to relieve want, mitigated and assuaged grief, and 
dispelled darkness with the radiant gleams of a risen sun.  In faithfulness 
and meekness the sweetness of an unassuming and reverent spirit have formed a 
halo of benignity and self-sacrifice.  In temperance and self-control there 
has appeared a symmetry and roundness and depth and strength and beauty of 
personal character rarely equaled and seldom surpassed, giving her life the 
strength of winter and the freshness of spring, the intensity of summer and 
the mellowness and ripeness of autumn.  In character, as has been well said by 
one who has had opportunity in a long life of familiar intimacy go learn, she 
has been a true saint, in sprit and in deed.  Her life has been as pure as the 
riven snow, as lovely as nature’s fairest blossom, and sweet as the most 
fragrant flower; as redolent as springtime’s early morn, and as gentle as the 
halcyons calm.  Such a life, so rich in every element of worth, dignity and 
beauty, so replete in deeds of goodness, gentleness and love, so radiant with 
the light of heaven’s fairest jewels, is a legacy which while it encircles the 
world, gathers about the holy sacred and reverent uses of life, the charm and 
beauty and glory of a life beyond the grave.  In the exalted heights of 
character reached by the truest men and women, we have a pledge of an endless 
immortality.  They are as the alpine cliffs which, peering into heaven, have 
their summits of perpetual snow glisten in the splendor of eternal day, while 
at their verdure-covered base, rich with the materials that bless mankind, 
they furnish comfort and joy and plenty and inspiration to the struggling 
multitudes below.

What satisfaction there must be in all this splendor of womanhood and 
assurance of life eternal to bereaved friends.  What a spirit of resignation 
it must inspire, what a lofty ideal of life impart.  In instances such as 
this, death is no dark, unrelieved calamity; it is no bourne filled with gloom 
and despair, it has no terrors to affright the soul, no sting to make a mortal 
wound, no horrors to haunt the sleep and fill with anguish the waking hours of 
bereaved and smitten friends.  Christ sought in the sepulcher His victory.  
Paul yearned for death as an open door to glory.  Martyrs have ever regarded 
the stake as their brightest crown, while Christian men and woman have always 
approached the stygian depths with songs of triumph and visions of eternal 
bliss.

This life in mortal flesh is but the seed germinating into the beauty of 
holiness and surety of eternal life.  It does not yet appear what we shall be, 
but we know that when He shall be manifested we shall be like him.  Here we 
are sown in corruption but there raised in incorruption, sown in dishonor but 
raised in glory, sown in weakness but raised in power, sown of natural body 
but raised as spiritual.  As the flower is preferable to the seed, so is 
immortality to life; as the fruit is…(the remainder is illegible).


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