OBIT: Emma (Fahrney) BEACHY, 1941, formerly of Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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EMMA FAHRNEY BEACHY

  Mrs. Emma (Fahrney) Beachy, wife of Peter A. Beachy, died at their Oak Park, 
Ill., home Feb. 13, at 9:15 a.m.  Funeral services were held the following 
Saturday at 3 p.m.
  She was aged 77 years on Jan. 27, last. She had been an invalid since Jan. 26, 
1940, when she became paralyzed on her left side.  Five days before she passed 
away she contracted a severe cold that developed into pneumonia.  She was kept 
alive for two days and nights with the aid of oxygen before the end came.  Prior 
to that she had been feeling well and was able to walk with the assistance of 
two persons, and also to sit up and move about in a wheel chair.  She passed 
away peacefully and without a struggle.
  Her husband also contracted a severe cold about the same time as his wife, and 
was not allowed by his physician and family to accompany her remains to the 
cemetery.  He has since recovered and was feeling well when last heard from by 
his old friend and cousin, the senior editor of the Meyersdale Republican.
  Several years of Mrs. Beachy's childhood were lived in Meyersdale.  She was a 
daughter of the late Dr. Peter Fahrney, who came here from Hagerstown, Md., in 
the early 1870's and practiced medicine and conducted a small laboratory for the 
manufacture of a popular remedy for human ills, known as Fahrney's Panacea, the 
formula for which was brought from Germany and handed down in the Fahrney family 
from father to son for several generations.
  About the middle 70's, Dr. Fahrney moved his family and laboratory from 
Meyersdale to Chicago as a more central and advantageous location for his 
growing medical business.  There in the succeeding years he developed and 
expanded his business until he had built up one of the largest and most 
prosperous patent medicine concerns in the entire country.  At the time of his 
death about 35 years ago his estate was appraised at nearly $4,000,000.
  Miss Emma Fahrney, the elder of the two daughters of Dr. Peter Fahrney, the 
proprietary medicine magnate, in her young womanhood married a young man named 
Pratt.  Two children, a daughter and a son, resulted from this union.  Mrs. 
Pratt became a widow when her children were still quite young.
  About the turn of the century Dr. Peter Fahrney employed Peter A. Beachy, a 
native of Elk Lick Township, Somerset County, Pa., second son of the late 
Abraham P. Beachy, as his private secretary.  Peter Beachy, who was one of Elk 
Lick's finest young men, located in Nebraska after his graduation from Mount 
Union College, Alliance, Ohio, in 1882, and was engaged in the banking business 
in that state for 15 years, then went to Hoquiam, Washington, to accept 
employment in the banking business there, but had remained there only about one 
year when Dr. Fahrney, on recommendation of a friend, begged Mr. Beachy to come 
to Chicago to act as his secretary at a very attractive salary.
  Dr. Fahrney, whose health was failing at this time, made it a condition of his 
secretary's employment that he should live in his employer's household, of which 
the widowed daughter and her children were members.  Mr. Beachy up to this time 
had never married, but he changed his mind about remaining a bachelor after he 
met Mrs. Pratt, whose second husband he became on Jan. 10, 1901.
  No couple were ever more happily mated than Mr. and Mrs. Beachy.  After 
becoming his son-in-law, Dr. Fahrney made Mr. Beachy general manager of his 
prosperous business, also executor of his will.  After Dr. Fahrney's death, the 
business continued to grow and prosper and is still a going concern under well-
organized permanent management.
  Besides the panacea that made the name Fahrney known, in every country in the 
world, other remedies were developed in the Fahrney laboratory and added to its 
products.  The Fahrney medicines are never sold through drug stores, but 
entirely by personal agents.  The directions for using are printed in no less 
than eight languages, and the Fahrney products are sold and used in nearly all 
the countries of Europe and the Spanish Americas, as well as throughout the 
United States.
  A son, Harold, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Beachy in 1906, who is now married and 
a father.  Mrs. Beachy is survived by her children and several grandchildren and 
a number of nephews and nieces, children of her four brothers.
  Mr. and Mrs. Beachy established their home in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, 
soon after their marriage.  Later they established a winter home at Beverly 
Hills, Cal., which they turned over to their son after his marriage, and they 
then acquired another winter home at La Jolla, California, and a summer home at 
Frankfort, Mich., where there is good lake boating and fishing during the hot 
months of the mid-west summers.
  Mr. Beachy will continue to live in their Oak Park home with the same servants 
his wife had employed and will spend the months of July and August at their cool 
retreat in Northern Michigan.  He contemplates a visit with his brother-in-law 
and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Norman Musselman, at Arkansas City, Kansas, this 
spring.

Meyersdale Republican, March 6, 1941