OBIT: 13 Mar 1913
The Record, Ada, OH

Mrs Catharine McCreery, daughter of Samuel and Sarah Wingate, was born near New Cumberland, Carroll County, OH, on September 18, 1825; departed this life at her home, 420 S Main St, Ada, Liberty Township, Hardin County, OH, March 4, 1913, having reached the ripe age of 87 years, 5 months, 14 days.

On December 9, 1847, she was united in marriage to William McCreery. This union God blessed with six children-four sons and two daughters, two sons having died in infancy.

In 1861, Mr and Mrs McCreery removed with their family from Carroll County and settled on a farm north of Ada in Liberty Township. Here they resided until May 10, 1881, when they moved to Ada, which remained their residence until their death. After their marriage, she and her husband united with the Lutheran church in Carroll County and after their removal to Hardin County. They were for many years members of St Paul's Lutheran church, southwest of Ada. In 1883, under the pastorate of Rev F P cook, she transferred her membership to St Mark's congregation of this village. She was always a faithful and consistent believer of the faith she confessed. She loved the habitation of God's house and the place where His honour dwelleth.

While yet a member of St Paul's when the present system of good roads and modern convenience of travel were unknown and travel was attended with more or less difficult, those six miles to church were traveled regularly. In the big farm wagon so that their children might not be denied the spiritual training of the Sunday School at church. Even when the infirmities of age were hanging heavily upon her she would occasionally prefer to walk to the house of God under conditions which would put to shame others more favorably situated.

Of an amiable, cheerful and obliging disposition, she was universally loved and respected by all her many friends and was familiarly addressed by all as "Mother". Permitted to attain a ripe old age she has seen many and varied changes in our country. Her birth dates back to the time when James Monroe was the fifth president of the United States. She has beheld within her lifetime the greatest inventions of the world-the locomotive and railway, the telegraph and telephone, the harnessing of the electric forces for household and commercial use and the many modern appliances of convenience, usefulness and comfort which have transformed this primitive wilderness into a veritable garden, blossoming as the rose.

Often she would become reminiscent and talk of the long, tedious journey overland to Hardin County and the hardships incident to their early pioneer life.

For the past four years, the infirmities of age have gradually made inroads on her once strong and vigorous constitution, which for the past few months has rapidly declined until the summons came on Tuesday forenoon.

There remain to mourn her departure, four sisters and one brother, all of whom are also well stricken in years; two sons, Luther M, pastor of the Lutheran Parish at Morrisburg, Ontario Canada, and Samuel W of Lima, OH; two daughters-Mrs Sarah E Doling and Mrs Eliza J Karrick, both of this place; ten grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, together with a host of relatives and friends.

Funeral services were conducted by her pastor, Rev S L Boger, from the Lutheran Church on Thursday at 1:30 with interment at Woodlawn.