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Chase County Kansas Obituaries
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Austin, James
James Austin died at his home two miles east of this city, Saturday, September 15,1923 after an illness of about ten days. He had contracted a severe cold but it was not thought serious for several days. Tuesday of last week it began to draw heavily, on his vitality and he became weak. Thursday and Friday he improved and Saturday forenoon he seemed rapidly improving and it seemed a matter of only a few days when he could be out again. In the middle of the afternoon he suddenly took a turn for the worse and at 11 o'clock Saturday night he passed on.
The funeral was held from the home Monday afternoon and internment was in the Austin block in Prairie Grove cemetery.
James Austin was born at East Higate, Vermont, Sept. 13 1838. At the age of 15, with his father and two brothers he moved to Michigan, where they settled on a timber farm in Eaton county, near Charlottville.
(After completing the common school he attended the Michigan College and then taught school first in Michigan, then in Indiana and Tennesee. He quit school teaching to become internal revenue collector for the government in Tennesee. He went from Tennessee to Buffalo, New York, where he was employed in the railroad offices.
November 16, 1868; he married Miss Mary Elizabeth Barker, daughter of Mr and Mrs. James Barker. They came at once to Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, living in town for a short time and in 1869 they moved to the farm east of town where he resided the rest of his life. Mrs. Austin died February 1, 1876, leaving four children, George, William, Sarah and Mary.
On December 13, 1878, he married Miss Lavansha Ewing whom he had known since the time he came to Michigan as a boy.
Mrs. Austin, together with one son, W. C. Austin, five grandchildren, Cathrine Norton, James Austin, William P. Austin, Evangeline Glanville and Willie Glanville, and one great granddaughter, Jean Norton, survive him.
Chase County Leader-News, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, Sep15, 1923.
JAMES AUSTIN IS 83
Thursday, Sepember 13th, was the 85th birthday of James Austin, father of the editor of this paper. We don't remember just what sort of a fellow he was as a boy, we've got to take his word for that, but if he was as much of a boy as he has been a man he was some real boy.
He was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont way up in the northwest corner where you could almost see Lake Champlain and Canada. He moved to Michigan while yet a boy and after he became of age he spent a few years each in Indiana, Tennessee and New York. It was from Buffalo he came to Kansas.
He had been doing office work in Buffalo and on account of his health he and his wife came way out to Kansas and to Chase county in 1868. The following year he bought and moved onto the farm a mile and a half east of Cottonwood Falls where he yet lives.
The late Mrs. Ferlet has often told us that James Austin when he first came to Kansas was as near a dead man in looks as she had ever known, he was so thin and white.
Shortly before H. L. Hunt went to California, where he later died, he told us of an incident which happened in his store shortly after my father moved onto his farm. One morning my father came into the Hunt store and did some trading. After he went out, Frank Allison, who was town shoemaker and sexton at the cemetery, and who -was considerable of a wag, asked Hunt if he had a j spade he was not using which he would lend Allison. Hunt replied he had and asked Allison what he was going to do with the spade. Allison said he was not very busy and he thought he would go out to the cemetery and dig Jim Austin's grave, that he would be in need of one in a few days.
Frank Allison passed on some thirty or forty years ago. Hunt has been dead many years, Both Mr. nd Mrs. Ferlet have long gone over the divide but Jim Austin is still answering present and, although he's now having a wrestle with the summer flu, he has every evidence of being here to answer present for many years to come. He and his wife, Mrs. Lavansha Austin, who was 83 last May first, still live alone at
the farm home.
Chase County Leader-News, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, Sep15, 1923.
by your Chase County Host, Lorna Marvin.
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