[This is Margaret Elizabeth (Fryer) Beauchamp.]

Fairfield Recorder, Fairfield Texas
Friday, Jan. 2, 1925

TRIBUTE TO MEMORY OF AGED WOMAN
Mrs. "Bettie" Beauchamp, after an extended period of sickness covering
seven or eight months, died Thursday morning, November 13th, 1924, about
10 o'clock, at the home of her son, Mr. E. H. Beauchamp, in Fairfield.
She was buried Friday afternoon, about 3 o'clock, in the family lot in
the Fairfield cemetery.
Margaret Elizabeth (Fryer) Beauchamp was born at Clayton, Barbour County,
Alabama, March 27, 1846. She was the daughterof George Washington Fryer
and Matilda Johnson Fryer, of Alabama, both of whom died and were buried
in Fairfield. In a family of five sons and three daughters, "Bettie" was
the sixth child. Her childhood and young womanhood were spent at her home
in Alabama, but she came to Texas, together with others of the family,
in January, 1869, and settled in Freestone County, living two years at
the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Fryer at Fryer's Springs. In the fall of
1871, our subject was united in marriage to William Hamille Beauchamp.
To this union were born two sons and three daughters, none of whom survived
the mother except one son, Mr. E. H. Beauchamp, of Fairfield Texas. Mr
and Mrs. Beauchamp lived at many different locations in the County, but
were living at Dew in the fall of 1908 when they broke up house-keeping
and went to live at the home of their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and
Mrs. E. M. Watson, near Stewards Mill.
On July 18, 1913, Mr. Beauchamp died; one month less than three years later,
the daughter, Mrs. E. M. Watson, died, --she having been preceded by a
younger brother and sister by several years. Mrs. Beauchamp then moved
to the home of her other daughter, Mrs. C. H. Watson. But upon the death
of the latter, some two years later, she came to live at the home of her
son in Fairfield. She had been a member of the Methodist Church since a
child, and enjoyed the peculiar blessings and happiness of a consistent
Christian life.
During her fifty-five years sojourn in Freestone County, Mrs. Beauchamp
saw many changes take place; saw this young County pass through the throes
of Reconstruction and come out into half a century of varying fortunes
of progress and retardation. She saw the passing of a host of acquaintances
and loved ones, and grieved; yet she never allowed the gloom of despondency
to overtake her. By the calender she grew old in years but never in spirit
and her outlook on life. With her eyes ever to the future, she lived a
life of beautiful and implicit faith in Eternal Justice and the righteousness
and ultimate blessedness of the Divine Plan. To her conquering life was
added, in the closing years, a chaplet. This wreath contained interwoven
attentions and love from the hands and hearts of her near neighbors, friends,
relatives, and lovely grandchildren.
Her contributions to life contained none of the spectacular, but the remarkable
gift of a long term of unstinted, unselfish, helpful service. Like every
other pioneer woman, she was acquainted with the joys and sorrows and the
very hard work of the years which preceded the present days of convenience
and luxury. And she lived beautifully through it with the satisfaction
of having given good measure, and that running over, as a wife, mother,
grandmother, and neighbor. One who knew her best expressed well a tribute
to her when he said, "She was a remarkable woman."

Contributed by P. D. B.