Outagamie County WI Archives Biographies.....Pierce, Almira C. 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 August 9, 2008, 11:22 pm

Author: J. F. Fuller

Almira C. Pierce.


SO universally was she known as "Grandma Pierce" that many hardly knew her by
any other name. One instinctively wished to bring her nearer than could be done
by the usual formal address; so her self-elected family was large. It pleased
her warm, generous heart to have this title of affection, and she responded to
it ever with smiling consent.

     Mrs. Pierce came into the Congregational church from a sister organization
in Middletown, Conn., in 1857. The church in Appleton was young, and how
acceptable was her cheery, devoted spirit! Especially in the Sunday school was
she prized, and wonderfully successful. The children gave eager response to her
happy, trustful teaching, and fortunate indeed were they to be under such
blessed instruction. She literally trusted God for all things, and was net
disappointed. If need were present, she knew the supply would come, if not in
one way, in another: and it always did. So the black demon, "Worry," never sat
beside her hearthstone to shame her professed belief that "The Lord will provide."

     She taught a week-day class as well, guiding the little ones into Wisdom's
ways by the pleasantest of paths, never failing to add the best lesson of all,
faith in God. Young minds do not cavil, and her advice and example were too
attractive to be questioned. Many testify that her joyous confidence in God's
protecting care influences them now. Genial, witty, and entertaining, her
society was sought by old and young alike. She had ever an apt story or quick
repartee with which to charm her listeners. What an invaluable addition she was
to gatherings of those of her own age, all of whom had not such an inexhaustible
fund of humor. And how she loved her friends! Among my keepsakes there is a
little flower-trimmed card bearing the words, "A joyous Christmas to you! from
Grandma Pierce." And there was a legion of such messages that season.

     Soon after the close of the Civil War, she went South to teach the
freedmen; I think, was located in Arkansas. What a blessing her sunny nature and
Christian faith must have been to the newly liberated, childish race! Her talent
for illustration by story was remarkable and gave her great power. The picture
she knew so well how to present fixed the information in the imaginative minds
of her black pupils as dry statistics could never have done. But the benefit of
the religious training she gave them can never be estimated. To see a teacher
prove by practice as well as by precept that we should "take no thought for the
morrow" was worth more to them than any profound theology.

     Her physical strength being unequal to long continued labor there, she
returned to Appleton, where her last years were spent, teaching still in a most
beautitul way, her loved lesson of happy trust. No pain depressed her spirit,
though the active little frame sometimes faltered. There was always something to
be thankful for, some blessing to be mentioned, never the cares nor pains. Her
vine-wreathed cottage, where she lived alone, save for the presence of the
Friend she loved best, was made glorious by her joyful trust in Him.

     And so she lived among us until she was eighty-four. But that she "grew
old" could never be said of Grandma Pierce. That brave spirit kept its happy,
child-like nature to the end. When it came, we could not say "She is dead;" only
gone to be with Him in whom she had believed through all her long, trustful life.

    The burial service, held in the church she so loved, seemed not like a
funeral, but like a farewell to a longtime traveler going home.
                               JENNIE BUSHNELL DICKINSON.


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.


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