Elston - Maria - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Mrs. M.E. Elston, whose sudden death on the 29th ult. Is noticed elsewhere was interred at the family burying ground yesterday afternoon. The services were conducted by Rev. John L. Smith of the ME Church who delivered the following address: “Mrs. Maria E. Elston was born Dec 22, 1805; married Dec 18, 1823; settled in Crawfordsville in 1824 where she has since lived. She was the mother of 9 children, two of whom, a son and daughter, have preceded her to the spirit world. For 50 years a resident among you, the people of Crawfordsville need not be told who Mrs. Elston is. No poor word of mine could possibly add to the luster of her good name.  Blessed by her Creator with rare mental endowments which were carefully cultivated and developed under the mild discipline of the Society of Friends, upon which she continued to improve in after years by a course of general reading, Mrs. Elston was perhaps, for education and mental culture, without a peer among the noble pioneer women in this county 50 years ago. Not less remarkable, however, than these were the moral and social traits of her high character.  By instinct as well as education a firm believer that all men are created equal and that with God there is no respecter of persons, she ever maintained and was always ready with woman’s grace and Christian dignity to bear a faithful testimony against the great sin of American slavery and yet never so as to forget to search out the poor and destitute of her own neighborhood to reach out the hand of help to the fallen and out of her abundance to supply the wants of the needy. But it was as a Christian that her character culminated in its richest radiance and sparkled in its rarest brightness in the graces of the holy spirit. The light of her household, the joyous wife of a devoted husband and a model mother as was said of one of old, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness.  Although educated as we have seen under the mild mannered regime of the good people called Quakers, she was brought to see the necessity of a personal faith and of saving grace in the year 1829 under the labors of that prodigy for piety and pulpit power, Rev. John Strange, Presiding Elder of Charleston District which then embraced Crawfordsville where Rev. Stephen R. Beggs was preacher in charge.  Never demonstrative as a Christian except in tears, she maintained a steady trust, a calm peace and unyielding faith in Christ for 45 years, when death opened the gate to endless joys, where faith is swallowed up in sight. By her family and nearest friends as well as by herself death was looked for at almost any hour for more than a year past and yet the messenger came at last when least expected to shock us all with the sudden disappointment that our dear sister was no more. On Wednesday the 21st she dined with a company of friends at the house of her son-in-law, Hon. Henry S. Lane. She seemed quite as well as usual. She made a call on a friend in the afternoon. She was taken ill at 9 o’clock then one brief hour in the last conflict and all was over. Just before the happy spirit was released from the clay tenement, she said to her daughter, Mrs. Lane, “Can this be death,” and after a few moments more uttered her last words on earth, saying, “I am growing blind, I feel tired.”  Ow remarkable the coincidence. The last words of her lamented husband when dying were also, “I feel tired.”  The wearly wheels of life at last stood still; their work was done and husband and wife have again greeted each other on the brighter, better shore. To the sons and daughters of these honored parents, I can only say they have left to you the richest legacy, the fragrance of a life of noble deeds, sand bright Christian example. And though today you drink the bitterness of the orphan’s cup, prepare, O prepare, for a reunion in heaven. Your Christian mother has prayed for you with a faith and fervor that none but a Christian mother knows or can know and shall not her children, yes all her children, rise up and call her blessed, for having taught them the right way of the Lord. To the poor and friendless I would say, you have lost, it may be, your best earthly friend. God who raised Sister Elston up for a life of usefulness, will raise up others and his poor shall not be forgotten.  Come then to the grave of your benefactress with your offerings of tears and flowers; drop upon that newly raised mound the sprig of evergreen as a token of affection and fit emblem of immortality.  A closing word in its fitting application to the life and character of our dear departed sister in Christ I take from the book of books Prov .31, 30 “Favor is deceitful and beauty is van; but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised!”