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Chase County Kansas Obituaries
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Wood, Gracia Pope
In Memory of Gracia Pope Wood
Last Thursday morning at 11 o'clock the Congregational church at Elmdale was filled with relatives, neighbors and friends, who had gathered there to pay a last public tribute of love and esteem to Mrs. Gracia Wood who died of pneumonia at 2 o'clock a. m., February 12, at her home at Elmdale.
As the friends assembled beautiful.
flowers were brought, and the stand in froht was covered with their emblematic whiteness. The choir sang "Asleep in Jesus," after which a scripture lesson was read from John 11:23-27. Prayer followed and the choir sang "Rock of Ages."
Rev. H E Mills, of Strong City, who conducted the service then spoke briefly, with Ps 116:15 as a text: Precious to the eys of the Lord is the death of His saints." "I will be thinking" he said,
Of the beautiful things there are in the death of a Christian. Sorrow, pain, temptation and trials, are all left behind when the soul is given its wings. How glad we ought to be that we cannot read the future; coming delights Would make to dissatisfied with our present joys; coming sorrows would unnerve us for present duties. How glad likewise we should be that God knows the future with all its sunlight and its shade, and that no possible harm can come to that child of his willing to trust him fully. God graciously hangs a curtain before us and when in our impatience we seek to find some rent through which to peer, He says, "my child, it is better to trust then to see."
The speaker gave a tribute of personal esteem for the departed one, and than spoke of the messages she left, especially her strong desire that the young people should prepare for the future life, "because," she said. "it is all there is to live for; tell them I said to get ready."
Near the end of her suffering, Mrs. Wood had repeated over and over the words "drest in his righteosness alone," and expressed the wish that this hymn might be sung at the funeral; so in concluding the service the choir sang, "The Solid Rock" in which the above words are found. A large number then followed the remains to the Elmdale cemetery where a few words of hope and comfort closed the simple and impressive service.
Those who knew Mrs. Wood are not surprised that she met death without the slightest fear or dread. Her life was a continual benediction wherever she went. She possessed in a very large degree those qualities which constitute truest womanhood. She was first respected, then esteemed, then loved, by all whose privilege it was to know her.
She was married to W. A. Wood thirteen years ago at Wichita, Kansas and has lived ever since at Elmdale. Three little children were left, the youngest only a few days old. While no words can tell the loss husband and children, have sustained it is equally true that words cannot tell what it is, and must ever be to them to have had such a wife and mother.
Her life, her work, her influence, large as they were, beautiful as they were, still needed a complement; it was found in her triumphant death. Her absence fills out the measure of her presence and makes her memory beautifully sacred.
Chase County Leader News, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, Feb 12 1895.
by Lorna Marvin
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