Pratt - John
Source: Clipping pasted into a Siegel Cooper Company Fall & Winter Catalogue 1906 by Cloe Collings Myers thanks to Harriet Weatherford for sharing this:
John PRATT, son of Austin and Mariah Pratt, was born in Parke County, Indiana May 28, 1838 departed this inconstant life May 29, 1910, having lived 72 years 1 day. Jan 1, 1875 he was united in marriage to Lydia M. Lane. This union was blest with the birth of 3 children but alas, amid the inviting future that did a beckoning hand for happy days of wedlock, strode in that grim monster death and claimed the wife, and two little hearts were left to grieve their loss of a mother who today in the day of woman and manhood gather around this casket and mourn the loss of father-- Marion C. Pratt and Anna, wife of Marion Payton. Oct 27, 1887, the deceased took the hand of Nancy J. Blue with whom he lived the remainder of his lie. As the result of this union one son was born Roy E Pratt, who today is left in his early days of manhood to grieve the loss of father's council. The departed leaves before the grave two sisters and one brother, Sam, Hannah and Polly. Uncle John Pratt, as he was generally called, never united with any church but believed the principles as contended for by the Regular Predestinarian Baptist. He had reason to believe that that blood that justified the Adam sinner gave him a surety of an immortal life. He was a man of council and possesst that degree of judgment that makes a successful life. He was one of the pioneers whose toiling hands made for us a country that affords the environments of happy progress. Let us draw the mantle of kindness over his earthy career and profit by the good deeds done in the body. To all who knew the deceased he has written his own life on the pages of the book of our remembrance and we have only to turn its golden pages to read his name and life among the good fathers, husbands, brothers and neighbors. Funeral services were conducted by Rev. Shelby and CR Collings at Mt. Moriah Church after which the remains were laid to rest in the old Cemetery.