Fairfield Recorder - Friday, August 27, 1926

IN MEMORY OF MRS. BETTY MCILVEEN
Today we are here, and three days hence we are laid to rest in the silent city.
Today this mortal beam communes with its fellow mortals and 24 hours hence it
ceases for the soul to pass beyond the veil to the here after. 

On the last Saturday morning Grandma Betty McIlveen was taken seriously sick.
Her tired frail body unable to weather the storm of weakness and pain soon gave
way and she passed from this life on the lords day at 6:30 o'clock in the
evening Aug. 22.

On the following afternoon funeral services were conducted by Rev. Herbert
McKissick and Rev. I. O. Dent in the First Baptist Church. The body was then
borne to her family division of the Cemetery and interred while a multitude of
sorrowing and sympathetic friends and relatives attended.

Mrs. Betty Winters McIlveen was born in Lowndes County, Mississippi, Oct.
20, 1851, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. P.W. Winters who came to Freestone
County in the middle 1850s. She was united in marriage to Dr. T.S. McIlveen n
her 24th birthday, Oct. 20, 1875. To this union five sons were born. One of who
died in infancy. The other four survive the mother and all live in Fairfield.
Of her immediate family, one sister only survives. She is Mrs. Henry Childs of
Fairfield.

It was Betty, the mere child who came to this county in the days of its infancy
and it was Betty, the girl, who saw it grow from a frontier settlement to a
populous county, saw and knew this country in its far away bomby days before
that great rebellion, The war between the States.

All honor to those who lived and wrought well in those former years. Grandma
McIlveen was aquatinted with toil and deprivations with sorrows, heavy burdens
and heartaches. Equally well also, was she aquatinted with fortitude,
generosity, neighborness, cheerfulness and loving kindness.

As a young lady she faced the desert days of southern reconstruction. As a wife
of 35, she saw her husband pass from life, leaving her with four small children
to support in a time when earning a living was a serious problem to strong men.
With the courage known to mothers of the yester years, she did what she could
and brought to maturity four honorable men, under difficulty she bore up with
Christian fortitude. In times of general misfortune she sought how she might
help make a burden light for the neighbors.

For years she was a devoted and consecrated member of the Baptist Church.
Hers was a beautiful and steadfast faith. In it she lived, thru it she looked
beyond the grave to her loved ones and friends over there in the glorious
mourning of the resurrection and by it she came down to the close of life
calmly and unafraid.

P. D. B.