OBITUARY of Martha Moore, Richwood Gazette, July 26, 1906, Thursday, Richwood, Union Co., Ohio

A PIONEER CALLED TO HER ETERNAL HOME: MRS. MARTHA MOORE

Passed to The Great Beyond at an Early Hour, Thursday Morning, Leaving Many Relatives and Friends to Mourn Her Death. Funeral Saturday.

Mrs. Martha Moore, a worthy pioneer of this section, passed to the great beyond, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Harry Good, on West Ottawa Street, last Thursday morning about 4:00 A.M. in her 83rd year. The funeral was held at the late home Saturday morning at 11:00 A.M. and was largely attended by relatives and sympathizing friends. Rev. McKinnon of Essex preached the funeral discourse and Rev. George B. Wiltsie of Richwood read the following memoir:

Martha Moore: (Funeral Sermon) "If it were not so I would have told you." If what were not so? All about the mansions and Jesus and not being troubled. Jesus distinctly said these things were true and if not he would have told us to. This assurance is the reason why we may hold steady, not be fearful, and even be cheerful on such occasions as this. This holy hope now tested for over 19 centuries is more real today, more full, more adequate than ever. Day after day as the years roll on, our friends enter upon this transition. One day, they are with us, they are well, the next day or a few, the eye, the hand and the voice are passive, they are sick, another, all is still, suspended, they are dead. What does it mean? Jesus said affiliation with God and me gain mansions, "If it were not so, I would not have told you, I go to prepare a place for you, I will receive you unto myself." A friend of the great Carlyle once said to him, "I tread the common road into the great darkness, without any thought of fear and with very much hope. It is all very strange, but no one-hundredth part so sad as it seems to the standers by." Here lies the body of one who deliberately desired to die, possibly somewhat because she would be freed from her distress but mostly because the pathway beyond was lighted up with jubilant hopes. Such thoughts as these are not sentimental, vapory and evanescent but rather healthy, uplifting and victorious.

Martha Moore spent 82 years and in addition 5 months and 3 days on the earth, having come into life the 16th of February 1824, and she left with us the expectations of living in the celestial world through the years that shall never be numbered. The place of birth was Northampton County, Pennsylvania. She left her native state when about seven years of age and came to Ohio. Here I learn she resided for a longer or shorter period in Muskingum, Madison and Van Wert Counties, but for a long period in Union County. When but 17 years of age, 4 March 1841, she was married to John Moore, with whom she lived 39 years, he dying in 1880. Their ten children are all living: Mrs. Sarah Ann Dysert, Jackson Township, this county, with whom her mother lived 3 years before coming to Richwood; Harvey Moore, Guthrie, Oklahoma; Hylas and Wilson of Richwood; Isaac, Gratiot County, Michigan; Mrs. Nancy Good, Richwood, who has diligently and tenderly cared for her mother during these recent months; Thomas M., Van Wert; Delphos M., Marion; Mrs. Achsa Pitts, Delaware; and James M. of Chicago.

It can be truly said that this mother who lived to see her children all grown into manhood and woman hood, spent her life for them and has left this lasting impress upon them. Those unable to be here today will feel the oppression of her passing away, though expected, as much as the most who are here. Naturally ambitious herself, she was ambitious for them and took hold of everything with firmness and activity that gave her marked characteristics. In all this she was kind hearted and intellectually inclined. Though she was naturally reserved and often loved to be alone. Since her conversion nothing delighted her more than to talk on religion and in this she was decidedly talkative, aggressive and firm in her convictions.

She was converted in January 1882 in the Fountain Grove school house not far from here. Rev. John W. Dounan, still of the Central Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was pastor on York Circuit and was invited to go to this school house to hold a revival, some twenty-five persons being soundly converted. She was one of the enthusiastic twenty-five. She then twenty-four years ago joined the Methodist Episcopal class which was small and afterwards broke up. In my visits with her I have found she had maintained her religion. She banked on her Bible. Some time ago I undertook to read to her some choice selections over which she became impatient saying, "Brother, but that's not in the Bible." She evidently felt that her end was so near, she wanted nothing but the straight Bible to which I then turned to her pleasure and at places she would break in with vehement interest and satisfaction. The children tell me they have often found their mother in earlier years by herself in secret prayer. Gospel song was cheering to her. For the last three years she has faded slowly as the leaves. For twenty-two to twenty-three years after her husband's death she lived often alone, a niece being with for a time. But the last three years or more have seen much suffering in the homes of these two daughters and hence these children would not wish her return. Thus has ended the more than four score years of this another toiling, sacrificing pioneer and early settler amid the sylvan malarious territory of Ohio, a round whose cabin, hastily and rudely constructed, roamed the innocent fleeting deer or the savage barking wolves. In spite of what these early years relate to us in comparison with our advantages and luxuries, this mother felt that the years when she had in her humble home her little children about her, were the happiest of her days. This tells us happiness is from within us and not from without. All honor to the memory of our sainted and victorious dead, whose bodies wearied and worn we lay lovingly under our mother earth but whose spirits we follow in mind on into the "somewhere" as Mr. Tracy has suggested in her happy poem, as follows:

Somewhere and Sometime

Somewhere in God's own realms so vast,
O'er which a mystic vale is cast
Shutting the future from the past,
Our loved ones gone, are living still
and there His purposes fulfill.

And whether they be far or near,
I cannot see, I cannot hear,
But for them, I have no doubt or fear
Since He who is our faithful guide
Doth over all His realms preside.

Sometimes a living presence seems
To come, as forms oft come in dreams,
And soothes and cheers like hope's bright beams,
And then I ask if this may be
Some ministering angel sent to me.

If this be so, "tis not reveal,
Perhaps in wisdom is concealed
and so I grasp faith's blessed shield,
In patience wait til God unfolds
The secrets which the future holds.

Cards of Thanks: We desire to sincerely thank the neighbors and friends for their assistance and words of sympathy in our bereavement. Also for the beautiful flowers bestowed as expression of love and esteem............signed The Children

Mr. and Mrs. James M. Moore and daughter, Martha of Chicago Junction, Mrs. James Pitts and daughter, Miss Sylvia of Delaware, and Miss Ethel Moore of Michigan, attended the funeral of Mrs. Martha Moore which was held here Saturday.

Martha Moore came with her parents, Isaac Gearhart and Ann Shafer, from Northampton County, Pennsylvania to Ohio, in 1830 and by 1840 was living on Rush Creek, in Jackson Township, Union County, Ohio. Martha Moore died at the home of her daughter Mrs. Harry Good (Nancy E. Moore) of West Ottawa St. in Richwood, Claiborne Township, Union County, Ohio.

Martha Moore was the sole beneficiary of her father Isaac's Will. At his death in 1879, he was living with Martha, on Rush Creek, Jackson Township, Union County, Ohio. She inherited his land on Rush Creek.

Martha Moore was buried at Bethlehem Claiborne Cemetery, on Bethlehem Road, Rt. 37, 2 miles south of Richwood, section 2, N.W. corner row 13.