SOWERS, Cora Campbell
Source: Kingman Star Friday, September 6, 1907
Cora Lena Campbell was born in Sugar Creek township, Parke county July 14 1873. She was the first child of John Christen and Mary Elizabeth Drake Campbell, there being one other child of this union, a son, Earnest Warren. Cora Lena was the last surviving member of the family who after three months of suffering exchanged this life for the life beyond, Aug. 31 1907, at the age of 34 years. She was born and received her childhood training amid the youthful environments of modesty and simplicity, which was enriched on every hand by the picturesque hills, valley and woodland of the home of her birth, to which place nature had lent the very grandest of her scenic beauty and sprightly glow. The music of the winning brook, the song of the bird and the lowing of the kind only brought her nearer to natures heart and its revelations, which were the real factors in her education and domestic life, so vividly exemplified in her home as a devoted wife and a loving mother who was ever zealous in her endeavors to have her children live and love the life of a humble child of nature, the choicest gift of Gods training, in which path she strode in life. Her early school training was received at the country school in the vicinity of her home, after which at the age of 16 she became s student of the Friends Academy at Bloomingdale. She later identified herself with the best interests of the public schools of Parke county as a teacher. It was during the school year of 1903 at the Academy, that her earlier close communion with nature received its highest culmination in her search of and conversion to God during a series of Friend’s meetings. Though thus converted early in life to the Living church of God her immediate later opportunities were not such as to admit of her identifying herself with church associations; but even at this and while as most of us she may have erred, yet the real and accomplished motive of her life was to build a reserved and Christian character which has and will ever stand in accord with the life which she lived. She was married to Theora Sowers Oct. 31 1896. Three daughters, Loka, Phea and Dorothea were given them as pledges of their love. Her husband and daughters survive her. Her lingering sickness was caused by an epidemic attack of measles which later developed into Pulmonary tuberculosis, causing her death. During her suffering, her sublimest traits of patient endurance and a spirit of uncomplainingness, were manifest, leaving not only evidence of readiness but also of willingness to meet her new life, though to the end she was ever mindful of a maternal loss to the home in future years, of that much needed mothers care and kindly administration of a mothers sympathizing love to her three dear daughters, who were the pride, the comfort and in truth everything to the joy of her life and the thought of departure there from. As an admonition to the family who miss her most and the friends who sympathize the loss, No after words can be spoken than those of the poet Whittier in his Eternal life.--
We long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles we long
But God has guided our dear one on
And He can do no wrong