Mrs. Julia E. Beecher, 98 Ill Since June Succumbs

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Would Have Marked 99th Birthday on Nov. 2; Hostess at Annual Party for 50 Years

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Verona, Sept. 22 – Mrs. Julia E. Beecher, esteemed resident of this section for nearly 70 years, passed away this morning at 9:15 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. B. J. Dodge.  Mrs. Beecher would have been 99 years old on November 2, 1937. 

            She had been in quite good health until last June and been confined to her bed since June 22.

 

ENTERTAINED FAMILY EACH YEAR IN NOVEMBER

 

            In 1936 at Thanksgiving time she was hostess at a family party held at the home of her granddaughter, Mrs. L. E. Pritchard at Lowell, to mark the season of thanksgiving and to celebrate her birthday.  For over 50 years it was the custom of Mrs. Beecher to entertain at that season and as the years passed, the family party was given by her daughter, Mrs. Dodge, and later by members of the third generation.

            Julia Everett Beecher was born in Ellsworth, Conn. on November 2, 1838, a daughter of Gamaliel   and Nancy Woodward Everett.

            Her marriage to Stiles M. Beecher occurred on January 1, 1861.  Mr. Beecher’s death occurred in 1878 after service in the Civil War.  Soon after their marriage they came to Vernon Center to live, but Mrs. Beecher returned to Connecticut during the war period, returning to this section after her husband’s discharge.

            Mrs. Beecher has been a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church and has taken a keen interest in the work of the Missionary Society and of the temperance organization.  She was a life member of the New York State W. C. T. U.

            Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. B. J. Dodge of Verona and Mrs. Eugene Clark of Stockwell, N Y.  She leaves also nine grandchildren, Mrs. John Sloan of Colchester, Conn., Francis Clark of Oak Point, Wash., Mrs. Lincoln Kitchen of Lairdsville, Everett Clark of Warsaw, the Rev. Albert Clark of Clinton, Iowa, Mrs. Leon Pritchard of Lowell, J. Ward Dodge of Scotia, and Winfield Dodge and Seward Dodge of Verona.

            Surviving also are 23 great grandchildren and two great, great grandchildren.

            Funeral services will be held on Saturday at 2 p. m., e. s. t. at the home of her daughter, Mrs. B. J. Dodge, Verona and burial, in charge of J. J. Strong, Rome, will be made in the family plot in Verona Cemetery.

 

                        A Typical American Woman

 

            Wednesday’s Sentinel carried the news of the death of Mrs. Julia E. Beecher of Verona, and tomorrow they will complete her life’s cycle when they lay her to rest beside her husband in the family plot in the Verona Cemetery.  Had she lived six weeks more, she would have been 99 years old.

            There is something awesome about a person who has lived nearly a century and has been active and alert nearly to the end.  Discounting the earlier years of her childhood, she had had 93 or 94 years of awareness of the world about her, its changes in customs and ways of doing things; of the world’s people, their foibles, their strength, the weaknesses and the lovableness of many of them.  What wisdom those years must have given her!  Wisdom to see that most of the things men pursue madly are but will-of-the-wisps and the things that they scornfully pass by are the purest good.  It takes a long life to learn that.

            We call “a typical American woman” and advisedly.  Born in New England to a family with the old American name of Everett and of a mother named Nancy and a father named Gamaliel, when she was 22 she married Mr. Beecher and they came to Verona Center to live.  Living in Verona Center in the 60’s [1860’s] wasn’t exactly pioneering, but she and her husband did come to a new land, for them, and struck their roots.

            The Civil War was to interrupt their lives, but only briefly, and when peace came they resumed the common tasks of most of us hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they earned the affection and respect of the community in which they lived.

            Her family was truly American, too.  While it was her fate that her husband would die early in life, she held the family ties closely.  For 50 years at Thanksgiving time their strength was renewed.  As time went on there were grandchildren and great grandchildren, nine and twenty-three, respectively, to meet at the close of the year.  To her children she was such an example that in the communities in which they live, they, too, are not spoken of save with honor.

            She is marked, then, by her courage, her willingness to make sacrifices for the common good, her physical and spiritual uprightness, her being a good citizen, her love of family, her closeness to the soil, as being a typical American woman.  Typically American?  Yes.  But also a typical personification of the symbol of womanhood.

- Rome Sentinel