Ohio was a frontier, Indiana an Indian country when she was born at Carlisle, Ind., in 1825. A child, the memory of the Indian outrages was ever present. A maid attending periodically the log school house where it was intended that two months school should be held every year. 'Twas to the school that came a river pilot, after his sister, a handsome man with deep water training. She was his wife at 18. The next year they pioneered to Wisconsin, in 1844. Then for twenty-five years her memory was of log houses, low temperatures, sleighing, snow banks and the game of the frontier. Deep in her memory was scared the privations of women following the war of 12, the Indian wars; the Mexican and Spanish wars. During the Rebellion the soldiers of the northland were always passing thru her home, The enlistment of her two grandsons, kept alive all the tales of a century that related to war, pestilence and famine. For days she would sit and cry telling of the days so long gone. Speaking of the friends, relatives and those beloved all gone.
Joining the Methodist church in her Indiana home in childhood she would tell of the organizations of churches in her many homes. Always a Methodist church. The guest of honor at her home or three fourths of a century was the pioneer preacher of any denomination, Those men who carried a potent force into the wilderness and never returned to the luxuries of populous places. The mother of thirteen she survived all except five. Strong in physique and will she held fast to life and faith until the last. Into Kansas in 1870 she located at Sabetha. Surrounded by her surviving children she moved quietly in a restful position and they drew her covers closely. So gently did she pass away that those present failed to recognize her passing until her soul had departed. She was laid to rest beside the lover of her girlhood, who had died thirty years prior almost to a day.
Mrs. Rebecca Hook was born August 28, 1825. Died at the home of her son, Gorge Hook, January 29, 1919. Born at Carlisle, Ind. she was married there at the age of 18 to William H. Hook on December 21, 1843. The mother of thirteen children of whom five survive, Mrs. Belle Sweet, Chanute, Kas.; Mrs. Anna Holshouser, Lincolnville, Kas; Mrs. Emma McKee, Anthony, Kas; George Hook, Sabetha and F. J. M Hook of the ship building branch A. E. F.
She was admitted into the M. E. church when a girl. She came with her family to Sabetha in 1870.
---The Sabetha Herald, Thursday, February 6, 1919