SPARTANBURG CO., SOUTH CAROLINA - OBITS - McELRATH, Rachael

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"The Jacksonville Republican"
Jacksonville, Calhoun Co., Alabama

NEWSPAPER Issue of Saturday, JULY 19, 1884

LOCAL News

Died, July 13, 1884, Mrs. Rachael McElrath, aged 75 years, 6 months and 13 
days. Obituary next week.

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NEWSPAPER Issue of Saturday, JULY 26, 1884

LOCAL News

Will the writer of Mrs. Rachael McElrath's obituary please furnish us 
manuscript copy again. The obituary was mislaid last week and cannot be 
found. Mrs. McElrath was a reader of the Republican forty years or more. She 
was a most excellent lady and her death is mourned by a large circle of 
friends.

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NEWSPAPER Issue of Saturday, AUGUST 2, 1884

IN MEMORY OF MRS. RACHAEL McELRATH

The subject of this sketch was born in Spartanburg District, S.C. on the 1st 
of January 1810. She was happily converted and joined the Presbyterian 
church at Nazarath in Spartanburg District, over fifty years ago. She died 
at the old family homestead in Calhoun county, Ala., July 13, 1884. After 
forty years sojourning in Calhoun, she now resigns and passes away. She had 
well nigh reached her three score and ten, over two thirds of which had been 
devoted to the service of God, as a consistent member of the church.

Of the personal character of this mother in Israel, many womanly gifts and 
graces were harmoniously blended, but the crowning glory of her early 
womanhood was her fervent piety; a piety which lent a charm to every 
feature, gave a modulated softness to every tone and radiated through her 
whole life. Although reticent and unobtrusive, she was firm, earnest, and 
sincere and exerted a silent but potent influence for good upon all with 
whom she came in contact. As a wife she was all that a fond and doting 
husband could want, finding her greatest pleasure in doing his will. She was 
a fond conscientous painstaking mother whose greatest care was to impress 
the saving truths of Christianity upon the minds and hearts of her children.

In her death, all classes are bereaved, the poor and destitute have lost a 
kind and judicious benefactress, the community an unselfish neighbor, 
society one of its brightest ornaments, and the church a useful member. He 
who in love and wisdom has assigned her to service and marked the end from 
the beginning, saw that her work was done, and affectionately bade this 
trial worn child come home to rest.

Trials and suffering through grace and patience had wrought in her a perfect 
work and her lovely spirit purified in the furnace of affliction, lightened 
of its fleshy load, gladly winged its flight from the scenes of woe and care 
to the blissful realms of endless days, where she roams happy and free in 
the garden of God.

"Then, star by star declines,

Till are are passed away,

As morning high and higher shines,

To pure and perfect day. " 

~~ B.

(Transcribed Sept 26, 2006)