Southampton-Sussex County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Tyler, Martha Rochelle, 1867 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/vafiles.htm ************************************************ MARTHA ROCHELLE TYLER 1820 - 1867 She was the daughter of James and Martha Rochelle who married John Tyler Jr. on December 6th, 1838. Her three children were James Rochelle Tyler, born the 9th day of August 1839, Letitia Christian Tyler, born on the 27th day of April 1844, and Mattie Tyler was born on the first day of March 1846. She was taken ill on Friday morning January the fourth, and departed this life on Friday morning, at five o’clock, January the eleventh A.D. 1867 in the forty-seventh year of her age. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" When worth and talent depart, when those who we dearly loved die, when those who have discharged with honor and fidelity all of the duties of life, when more even than that, with a noble self sacrifice, they have labored o'r for the happiness of others than their own, when God in his providence call them from earth to received the reward of their labors, we ot only drip the tears of sorrow to their memory but friendship and affection and a sincere love of merit call upon us to plant a laurel on their grave. It is for that purpose that I take my pen to preserve fresh and green if I can the memory of my dear relative and friend Mrs. Martha Rochelle Tyler, who died in Jerusalem, Southampton County, Virginia on the 11th day of January 1867 at the residence of her mother, in the full hope of heaven, for she died in the faith. Mrs. Tyler was the only daughter of her parents, James and Martha Rochelle, born in affluence and connected by blood with source of the wealthiest and most respectable families in her county, her childhood and early youth passed happily away, she grew up a most beautiful woman, a faultless form and exquisite grace of movement, eyes dark and lustrous, oval face of faultless mould, cheeks blending the rose and the lily, hair of a sunny golden tinge waving around her neck and shoulders, one of those faces that haunt poets, and painters in their dream of beauty and once seen never forgotten. Where advantage of youth and beauty and fortune united with a sweet temper and winning manner gathered around her a host of friends and lovers as soon as she entered society. At eighteen years of age she married John Tyler, Jr. of James City. She dug for herself new wellsprings of joy in her children, and from this time for the her life became entirely unselfish, and was devoted to the happiness of others. Pecuniary troubles and embarrassments came upon her aged mother, she had been her pride and joy, and she now became her staff and comfort, and supported and cherished her in adversity. She educated her children and lived only to make them happy. I married her eldest daughter, Leticia Christian Tyler, who was as beautiful as her mother, I will not dwell on her memory here for I have written her memoir elsewhere for my and her son, but this I will say, that during our brief union started of happiness such as - on fall to the lot of man, but the brightest joys of earth die soonest, and my sweet wife died in my arms at eighteen ere she had known either care or sorrow. Mrs. Tyler, of intense and painful sensibilities, lulled and staggered under this blow, and it was only her duties to the living that called her back from the memories of the dead; she adopted my little boy Willie as her own child, and no mother ever nursed and tended more fondly her own first born child, to my son the loss if irreparable, and her death had left a void in the circle of my affection, which can never be filled. Her disposition ere sorrow and affliction pressed heaving on her heart was sunny and cheerful, she was a warm friend, confiding and trusting in her nature she was slow to believe evil of others and hated only vice and meanness. It has been said that persons of great beauty, those cast in a nobler mold than the mass of their race, have juster and keener perceptions of the good, the true and the beautiful, than others, whether true or not in a general principle it was true in her. Her talents were above mediocrity, she was well read of practical temperament and of most exquisite taste; of soft and winning mannerly, she won the hearts of all who approached her, and those loved her most who knew her best. Wm. B. Shands Martha (ROCHELLE; Mrs. John Jr.) TYLER, b. 1820, d. 11 Jan 1867, at mother's home, Jerusalem (now Courtland), interred in Poplar Grove Cemetery* *Poplar Grove Plantation is located on Hwy. 35, just inside the Sussex Co. line. Southampton County Historical Society {SCHS} Cemetery Project, Miscellaneous Cemeteries, Vol. 2 (II-33): http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/cemeteries/miscvol2.txt Her father is buried in a ROCHELLE family cemetery, on Gen. Thomas Hwy., near Handsom. SCHS Cemetery Project, Miscellaneous Cemeteries, Vol. 2 (II-39): http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/cemeteries/miscvol2.txt Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Jeffrey A. Hines (JAHines@cox.net), & Mrs. Bruce Saunders (bs4403@verizon.net), and re-formatted by File Manager. Courtesy of the Southampton Historical Society file at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/bios/t460m1bi.txt