Cunningham - Jennie Cochran
Source: Crawfordsville Daily Journal Saturday, 19 April 1890
Mrs. Jennie Cochran Cunningham, beloved wife of Rev. R. J. Cunningham, pastor of Center Presbyterian Church, died today at 11 o’clock after __ illness of four weeks’ of a type of fever and a general wasting away of the vital forces. Mrs. Cunningham was born in New York City thirty eight years ago last December. She afterwards removed with her parents to Newburg, N. Y., where she made her home until her marriage in 1876. 1874 she graduated from Vassar College and was a most highly cultivated and intellectual woman. During the _ years she has been a resident of Crawfordsville, she has made many _ and devoted friends who deeply sympathize with her bereaved husband and her six motherless children. Her remains will be taken to Newburg, N. Y. for interment, in deference to the __ of Mr. and Mrs. Cochran, her father and mother. Funeral services will be held Monday morning at 10 o’clock at the house, and will be conducted by W. P. Kane of Lafayette and E. B. Thomson, of this city. Dr. Cunningham accompanied by the children and Mr. and Mrs. Cochran will __ with the remains to Newburg. -s
Source: Crawfordsville Daily Journal Monday 21 April 1890
The funeral services of Mrs. R. J. Cunningham were held at the residence this morning at 10 o’clock. The number of people in attendance was unusually large. Rev. E. B. Thomson read a portion of the scripture and offered a prayer. The choir sang “Cast Thy Burden on the Lord.” Rev. W. P. Kane, of Lafayette, then read a short but eloquent and touching address on the life of Mrs. Cunningham as he had known her from the time of her school days. The following is Dr. Kane’s address:
This silent deserted body around which we gather today was the dwelling place of a rare and gifted spirit. Her earthly journey and trials are finished, but her kindly blessed ministry has not ended and cannot end. To have known her, to have been permitted in any measure to receive the impress and inspiration of her life is a cause of thankfulness. To realize that we shall know her no more on earth is a grief and a loss which cannot be put into words. It is difficult for one who knew her as I did for many years to speak words of meager truth without seeming to exaggerate. But few have ever made this earth journey and left behind a memory so fragrant and a record of active useful service so far from stain or censure. In her disposition she was gentle as a child; in her convictions firm and courageous; in conscientious devotion to duty loyal and unchanging. With rare intellectual gifts and culture yet unassuming and shrinking; with a piety fervent and deep yet quiet and unobtrusive, seeking neither prominence nor praise; yet shrinking from no dutiful service. Hopeful in every dark day; trustful and patient in every trying hour. In all that she said and did there was the impress of sincerity and unselfishness. With ready sympathy and helpfulness toward all and that charity, which thinketh no evil. In a somewhat intimate acquaintance reaching back to my student days, I cannot recall that I ever heard from her lips a harsh or uncharitable judgment of a human being. She seemed to me to live as on the borders of another world, within hearing of its angel__falls and its music of love. The message which called her home had not far to come for her daily life was close with God and the things unseen were ever within her vision. I may not try to speak of what she was to those who knew her as wife and mother; as daughter and sister. I fear I would open afresh the wounds which I would gladly soothe. We say that she is dead now and the word has a hollow sound as though it were but the echo of grief and loss. But what to such a life is death! Can it have even a shade of loss or sorrow to the one who has gone? Is it not rather entrance into light and life? Death is on this side only. We die here. We live yonder. During this earthly being we are always in transition and decay. In dying we pass from the temporal to the immortal; from the seeming to the real. The plant born in the darkness struggles through the darkness toward the sunlight and the air, and the sweet songs of birds and the fragrance of spring, blindly pushing its way onward and upward not knowing what it seeks.
Who will mourn when it emerges from its darkness and mystery into the light of God. This is what we call dying. Going from the darkness, the perplexity, unsolved mystery of earth into the eternal light. For two days now she has been in what we call “the other world.” I would give all my books and all the study of my life if I could only know just what she has learned in these two days. That other world! Its farther boundary is beyond the stars, but who can tell us where it begins? Who can tell us how far we shall have to go before we find ourselves enveloped by the radiant and reposing host? They eyes of Elisha’s servant needed only to be opened, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about the prophet. Two worlds there may be, but the universe is one, and God is one. In my Father’s house there are many apartments. The other world is only another apartment in his great abode and death is the silent swinging door through which we pass from one to the other.
The services then closed with the hymn “Abide With me,” and the family left on the 1 o’clock train for Newberg, N. Y. -s