Blount County TN Archives News.....News Articles October 7, 1904
************************************************

Copyright.  All rights reserved.

http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/tn/tnfiles.htm

************************************************



File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Glenn Teffeteller glennt@icx.net August 20, 2005, 3:41 am

THE MARYVILLE RECORD October 7, 1904
Friday, October 7, 1904



Louisville---The remains of Rev. William Johnson who died Friday were laid to

rest Saturday at the Open Door Church.



Louisville---The little two-year old daughter of Oscar Prates died Tuesday

night and its remains were interred Wednesday afternoon at Holston College.



Mrs. Mary T. Armstrong was born near Clover Hill, Blount County, Tennessee,

March 4, 1859. Her parents were Robert Strain and Serena Grisham. Her mother

and two brothers, James and John, are still living. When she was four years

old the family moved to Bond County, Illinois. She was married there, March

18, 1879, to Wesley P. Armstrong. He died November 8, 1883, leaving two

children, Blanche and Clyde, to their mother’s care. She worked very hard for

more than a year to make little farm pay its indebtedness and support the

three. Finding this impossible she gave up the farm and turned to the

congenial work of the school-room. After a year’s teaching at Reno, Illinois,

her health failed completely and she was told by physicians that only a change

to a milder climate would save her life. She moved with her two children to

Eastern Colorado and took up a claim of land. Where here her health slowly

returned in spite of the increasing burden of work, and she soon made her

influence felt for by establishing a Sabbath School among the cowboys. Later

it was found best to send her son back to Illinois to her mother’s care while

she moved with her daughter to Pueblo, Colorado. She taught school near Pueblo

for three years, and found abundant opportunity to do good among her pupils.

She joined the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pueblo, taught in the

Sabbath School, and threw herself actively into all the interests of the

church and community. When her increasing deafness made it impossible for her

to teach she did not despair, but turned courageously to a new work, and

supported herself and children by establishing a greenhouse of her own in

Pueblo. She was just getting firmly established and on a fair way to

prosperity, when she was called back to Illinois to care for her son who had

met with an accident so serious as to threaten lingering invalidism. She sold

her greenhouse in 1897, and sadly turned her back upon the west and her busy

life there. She felt that God had blessed her in her going. He would also

bless her in her returning. She took up her life again with her mother and

brother on the farm near Reno, Illinois. She planned, she economized, she

worked for her children. By precept and example she set before them noble

ideas of life. She prayed as only a consecrated mother can pray---for rich

spiritual gifts for her children. She came back to the home, the church and

the community with a new strength and beauty and sweetness of character born

out of life’s varied experiences, and her gifts were more fully laid on God’s

altar for service. Her limitations as to hearing made her only the more rapt

listener to the love of friends, the needs of the suffering, the cry of the

sorrowing, the service of the house of God. She remained here until March,

1900, when again the call came to move forward. This time it was God’s leading

that she should come back to her native state and care for her aged aunts

living in Maryville, Tennessee. In a beautiful spirit of devotion she entered

this home where feebleness and declining years had narrowed the life almost to

its little daily round of toil. Quite unconsciencously she brought into the

home a renewed interest in the lite of the community, a better knowledge of

the enlarging work of the church, and the refreshing influence of her ever

widening circle of friends. She brought also into the home her sunny outlook

upon life, her broader scope of vision, her deeper interest in the world’s

best work. When ths shadow of the Angel of Death hung over the home for so

many long weeks, it was her loving care that smoothed away the weariness and

pain for the aunt she watched tenderly, day and night, till the end came. No

loving daughter ever cared for a mother more tenderly than did she for the

aged aunt who still survives, having outlived all her immediate family circle.

She joined New Providence Presbyterian Church, and, from the first identified

herself with its interests; the prayer-meetings, the Sabbath School, the

Missionary Society, the church service and the revival. Other interests also

claimed her time and service; the Ladies’ Aid Society, the Women’s Council,

the Neighborhood House in town, the Summer School in the mountains, the

W.C.T.U., and the Chilhowee Literary Club. To each and all of these she gave

her heart’s best, carrying inspiration into them, and out from them to bless

other lives. She was broad in the truest and best sense of the word, avaining

herself of every means of grace, every aid to philanthropy, every incentive to

intellectual development. The keynote of her life was a sunny unselfishness of

which she was all unconscious in the joy she felt in doing for others. She

made a golden ladder by which to mount to Heaven out of life’s daily round of

toil. She died of erysipelas, after a two week’s illness, September 30, 1904.

The beauty of her daily life, merged in the valley of the shadow of death into

a glorified peace, and faith, and resignation, that made it a hallowed

priviledge to watch beside her. Loving friends cared for her, day and night,

in her last illness, doing all in their power to alleviate her sufferings. To

the last God left her mind clear to commune with others, and leave messages

for the dear ones who could not be with her. When the brave heart at last was

still, and the rest for which she sighed came, many a heart felt glad, that

for a few years at least, here in Maryville, God had lent us the benediction

of her noble life as He had lent it to other communities for a widening circle

of widening influence. God called her away from Tennessee, in early childhood,

when the dark shadow of a war cloud hung over the Southland. He brought her

back when the peace lay upon its hills and valleys. She lies buried in

Magnolia Cemetery, in Maryville, Tennessee. It is fitting that her last

resting place should be in the sacred soil of her devout, pioneer ancestors in

the valley of East Tennessee. Out of the shadow and storm, and stress of life,

its many broken plans, its unceasing ministry for others, she came at last to

the peace of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, through it entering into that

blessed life where “they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run,

and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”     M.E.H. Friday, October

14, 1904



Bank---Much rejoicing was indulged by the residents when Mr. DeLozier’s old,

white sow succumbed to the ravages of the cholera germs, but even in her

severest paroxysms her fondness for chicken never left her. It is estimated

that she ate more than two hundred chickens this season, belonging to

different neighbors.



Cades Cove---Tom Brown was at home last week out of jail. He said he felt like

a bird turned out of a cage. We are afraid he will not feel quite so well by

the time they get through with him at court.





File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tn/blount/newspapers/newsarti151gnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/tnfiles/

File size: 7.7 Kb