The Quincy [Illinois] Daily Whig, Sunday, June 24, 1894; page 2.

Obituary.

The subject of the following notice from the Taunton, Mass., Gazette of the 20th inst., was the sister of Mrs. Julia Reed Emery, wife of the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, who was pastor of the First Congregational church of this city for fourteen years, from 1855 to 1869:

Mrs. Eleanor Sherbourne Deane, youngest of the four daughters of the late Deacon William Reed who reached maturity, rests from her labors after making a gallant struggle against the inroads of illness.

Her demise was not unexpected, and it was like the setting of the sun at the close of a sweet June day. For more than a year, Mrs. Deane's health has been failing, and for ten days, she has been very ill. All that love could do was done by the daughter at home, who did not leave her by day or night; and by other relatives, but, they could not detain her in her journey to the heavenly land.

She was the widow of the late Joseph P. Deane, and leaves three daughters, with brothers and sisters and a multitude of friends, to sorrow over her loss. Mrs. Deane was a woman of gentle and amiable ways, her mind was stored with information, her tastes were refined and scholarly; and she was gifted with a poetic genius of more than ordinary brilliancy.

Her pen was at the service of her friends, and her sweet lines, for two generations, have helped grief bear its burden, or added the element of joy and mirth to other occasions when hearts were light and lips were gay. Her 75 years were not the three-score and more of age, but the three-score of eternal youth: never weary in well doing, never weary in loving.

No better requiem can be presented than verses which she recently sent to a venerable friend who had been called upon to endure the heart-wrench which is inseparable from the loss of a loved one.

The title is "Departed."

"Last moment with us and gone forever,
So soon, so far, so wholly that the cry
We utter in importunate endeavor
Wins from the parted spirit no reply.

Stars so remote, their light --
that swiftest thing --
To visit us is ages on its way,
Are more responsive to our questioning
Than he who walked among us yesterday.

Yet is that unseen realm brought near to us,
Since he has vanished through its hidden door,
Which opened silently to let him pass,
Then shut against return for evermore.

For he who holds the keys of life and death
His being equally with ours sustains.
And the withholding of a single breath
May set us side by side, past earthly pains.

Then let us trust Him and no longer languish
For soft-breathed answers sent to us alone;
He who for us felt more than nature's anguish,
By His sure word illumines the unknown."