SPARTANBURG CO., SOUTH CAROLINA - OBITS - McELRATH, Rachael ************************************************ SCGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/sc/scfiles.htm Contributed to the SCGenWeb Archives by: Candace (Teal) Gravelle ************************************************ "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. --- 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. --- 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)