Outagamie-Fond Du Lac-Ashland County WI Archives Biographies.....Doe, Mary Beecroft 1828 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/wifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 August 9, 2008, 11:44 pm Author: J. F. Fuller Mary Beecroft Doe. BORN of Scotch parentage, seventy-two years ago, in Bangor, Me., and educated in the schools of that city, Mary Beecroft Doe began life as a pastor's wife in Lancaster, Mass. After four years she came with her husband to Appleton in this State, and, with the exception of a few years spent in St. Louis, Mo., while her husband had the superintendency of Home Missionary work in the Southwest, her life has been given to Wisconsin, at Appleton, Fond du Lac, Ripon, and Ashland. Being of a quiet, retiring nature and averse to publicity, she naturally shrank from any service that would bring her into public notice, but was all the more efficient in private ministrations. She was a queen in the home, with such qualities of mind and heart as to call forth the loving devotion of her family. Her quick, sympathetic spirit brought her into the homes of others where loving ministrations were needed. Such was her self-forgetfulness that she gave herself more to the welfare of others than to herself, and thus she became an inspiration to a purer, better life in the person, of large numbers whom she bound to herself with the silken cords of loving kindness. For a few years she lived under the shadow of a sudden death from disease of the heart, but her friends were spared the shock of such a death. An attact of grippe ending in pneumonia terminated her earthly career Saturday evening, April 28th. Her funeral occurred from the family home on Monday afternoon, Rev. A. G. Beach, and Rev. H. A. Miner, of Madison, and H. W. Carter, of Beloit, taking part in the services.— The Northwestern Mail. NOTE.—The compiler of these sketches, while looking over some old papers, finds among them a copy of a letter written by Mrs. Doe and read twenty -five years ago at the Quarter-Centennial celebration of the organization of the church, from which these quotations seem pathetically apt. "I remind myself of a family closet in house-cleaning time. Abundance there— something belonging to every member of the family—but the confusion is troublesome. Or, more aptly still, of the old Oaken Chest put away in the garret of the old New England home, in which are carefully stowed relics of the past, which Memory, with her golden key unlocks to-day . . . . But I must not linger over the old chest with its precious memories; and when another quarter century shall have passed, other hands will gather up the relics, and many of us will have passed to our reward, God grant that it may be in that blessed home, where 'No more at eve reclining, Suns without a cloud are shining. O'er the land of life and love: Heaven's own harvests woo the reaper, Heaven's own dreams entrance the sleeper, Not a tear is left the weeper To profane one flower above. There no sigh of memory swelleth, There no tear of misery dwelleth; Hearts will bleed or break no more; Past is all the cold world's scorning, Gone the night and broke the morning, With seraphic day adorning Life's glad waves and golden shore.' Additional Comments: Extracted from: THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. APPLET0N, WIS. PREPARED FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, DEC. 18, 1900. BY J. F. FULLER, A. M., Compiler of the "Fuller" Genealogy. 1850—1900. APPLETON PRINTING CO., APPLETON, WIS. Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/outagamie/photos/bios/doe1119gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wi/outagamie/bios/doe1119gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wifiles/ File size: 2.6 Kb