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MAHANA, JOHN, AND DAVIS OBITUARIES
Bradley
B. Mahana was born in Pennsylvania, March 1, 1845, and died in Fairmont,
Nebraska, March 13, 1917, aged seventy-two years and twelve days.
He was married to Miss Elizabeth Taylor in Iowa City, Iowa, who preceded
him in death many years ago. To
this union were born three children, B. F. Mahana, Mrs. Robert John (Myrtle May
Mahana), Mrs. Guy Stradley (Percy Loraine Mahana) of Des Moines, Iowa.
The greater part of Mr. Mahana's life was spent in Des Moines.
In 1903 Mr. Mahana was married to Miss Ella M. Webber of Fairmont and since that time they have made their home in this city. She, together with the three children and four grandchildren mourn the loss of a kind and affectionate husband and father.
During the past seven years Mr. Mahana has suffered under the heavy affliction of blindness, but his unfailing cheerfulness and thought for others leaves a beautiful memory for his loved ones to cherish.
The funeral service was conducted at the home by Rev. W. P. Hanson, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of this city. The text for the sermon was taken from Dent. 1-6. The theme dealt with was the fact that death did not end all. Life was indeed more strange than death, and as every one has to pass through this same Valley of the Shadow, it is also necessary that we live in this life so as to fit us for the life to come. All are not perfect in this life and so we who are left should profit by the mistakes of those who have gone on before into the great land of the unknown until the final day shall bring forth its reckonings and every man Judge of all things.
And to those who mourn I would say see ye to it that life has reached its zenith here below and our records will be clean in the celestial city of God.
Mrs. J. U. Garey sang the solos, "Lead Kindly Light" and "God Will Take Care of You," with Mrs. Hanson at the organ. Interment was made in the Fairmont cemetery.
There is no gravestone for Bradley Brown Mahana.
IN MEMORIAM
By Adelaide Taylor Fullerton (sister)
As the glory of the bright June morning illuminated
the eastern sky, the spirit of Elizabeth Taylor Mahana passed from it frail
tenement into the great unknown.
Death came so gently that as we gazed upon her quiet rest we cannot help
but feel "That God's fingers touched her and she slept."
We land in youth, at the gate way of dreamland, and question the mystery
of death, but afterwards, when maturity is reached, the interrogation
changes--we knock at the portal of silence and would fain comprehend the mystery
of life.
The soul of man repudiates the doctrine "that death ends all."
It cries out to tree and peak and rock, for testimony of life, life,
eternal life.
And nature, while not audible in speech, soothes us like tired children
with an evening lullaby; and the "still small voice" repeats the words
of the poet:
"Dust thou are to dust returnest,
Was not
spoken of the soul."
And so to us it seems that the spirit of our loved one has only burst its
prison cell and like an exquisite butterfly has floated away on the air.
Would you say of the garment or the outer husk it has flung aside, It is
dead? Nay, rather say it has come
to the fullness of its being. It
has liberated that which it held, that brighter being it was fettering its
further growth.
Materialism would consign man to oblivion but our own souls urge
insistently and eternity of conscious existence, and whispers to us the secret
of the riddle of life, "that there is no death" and so when we read
Voltaire are others since his time, we reflect upon the impenetrable mystery and
say our last good night to her--good night it was--and pleasant dreams for when
she awoke it was "God who said good morning" as He touched her tired
eyelids and gave her perfect sleep and she only lost the dreams that troubled
her before.
And so the life thus closed is not meaningless or but the breaking of a
wave to the text she marked herself in her bible the same as that of an only
beloved brother Victor Mills Taylor of Chicago, who crossed over a few years ago
in the prime if manhood. "Let
not your heart be troubled," and as we approach the grave let it be like
the old man of Thanatopsis "who wraps the drapery of his couch about him
and lies down to pleasant dreams." For
this gives us the fortitude of a Socrates as he drinks the hemlock and is
historically sublime so she contemplated her transition with equal heroism
"neither was she afraid" when she reached the bend in the road and
disappeared.
It is fitting at this time to give a few facts of her family history.
Elizabeth Taylor Mahana was born December 15, 1849 in Cook County,
Illinois; her parents having moved there from New York.
She was the daughter of the late Lester G. and Phelena Robinson Taylor. She was married to Bradley
Brown Mahana at Iowa City, (Iowa), November 15, 1871.
Three children were born to them. One
son, Bradley F. Mahana, and two daughters, Myrtle and Percy Mahana.
A mother and five sisters survive her and were present at the parting;
they are Mrs. George S. Miller of Chicago; Mrs. Richard Mahana of Omaha; Mrs.
Edwin G. Erwin of Kansas City; Mrs. L. K. Fullerton of Waterloo; Miss Floy
Taylor of Kansas City.
It is not often, as has been said by those who knew the family
intimately, that so much history is blended in the blood of one family.
Mrs. Mahana's great-great grandmother was a Puritan woman of Connecticut;
in the days of the revolution, she gave to the continental army her husband and
sons, who for six long years fought in the ranks without furlough or revisit
home. The grandsons were in the War
of 1812, and fought in Mexico. Her
uncles were in the civil war between the states.
Her father was of English and French ancestry and had a coat of arms
conferred on him which was dated from the sixteenth century.
This was from the Herald College of England.
But being a true American, she cared little for this honor and rarely
spoke of it or of her family tree. She
cared little for society. As she
said a few weeks ago, it resembled a "bal masque," where the people
always wore their masks. Her home
was her haven; it was all-sufficient for her.
A large number of friends attended the services.
Revs. St. John and Comin of the Congregational Church, of which she had
been a member since early girlhood, officiated, the latter offering the prayer,
which was full of comfort to his hearers. Singing
by Miss Wilkenson and others was sweet and touching.
The text, mentioned above, fourteenth chapter if St. John, was read.
Then followed the remarks, which were very impressive.
He spoke of life, and the drawing of the picture from the cradle to the
grave was very beautiful. That the
soul of man was like a bird which enters a lighted room and escapes "whence
we know not." He pictured her
life as he knew her, as her friends and neighbors knew her, of the beauty of her
home--that she was dually endowed. She
was gentle, but decided; inflexible, yet reasonable.
She was dignity, yet meekness. Her
affection was as warn and tender as the June day on which she passed away.
If, as a divine has recently said, "good life is the greatest
preparation we can have," hers was certainly prepared in time, for her
whole life was devoted to others.
To him who in husband and father the blow is doubly hard.
Of the love and tenderness she always manifested, he alone can tell how
sweet to him is the memory of it all. It
is all that is left to him in his utter loneliness.
A devoted, loving mother, who never failed in her duty
to her children, who always, with a word or look, smoothed away a sorrow.
A generous neighbor and more the faithful friend of the poor.
This is enough. The greatest
life contains no more. Her cup is
full. "She lived, she loved,
she was loved, and love is the only thing in all the world," said one of
our philosophers, and it is true. With
these the noblest impulses of the human race builds a monument of glory above
the humblest grave.
There were a number of floral offerings from relatives and friends, which
were beautiful and suggestive of the love and esteem that was entertained for
her. The casket rested near the
window, which presented a bower of beauty, as it was covered with the flowers
she loved so well. A large harp
with a broken string, from the neighbors, and a broken circle, from the sisters,
was beautiful of roses and small ferns, and many others whose creamy petals were
no less fair and pure than the silent sleeper.
Over the
deep anguish of husband and children we draw the veil of sacred silencer; the
mist is too deep to penetrate. But
if they can only feel how the cloud that separates the dead from those who live
a little longer--how empty is the grave which we garnish with flowers and water
with our tears and look into the great beyond--where she awaits for the coming
of their feet.
"We
can but say, we will but say,
With
a smile on her lips and wave of the hand,
She
has wandered into an unknown land
And
left us dreaming how very fair
It
needs must be since she lingers there.
Think
of her faring on as dear
In
the love of there as the love of here."
Indianola Tribune, Monday March 13, 1972
Funeral services for Mrs. Myrtle John, 93, were held this afternoon at
the Overton Funeral Home with interment in the Indianola IOOF Cemetery.
Mrs. John
died Friday night at the Indianola Good Samaritan Center after a long illness.
She had lived in and near Indianola for about 40 years, and was a member
of Trinity United Presbyterian Church.
Surviving
are two daughters, Mrs. C.O. Davis of Indianola and Mrs. Cole Rice of Seattle,
Wash., and one son Robert John of Kansas City, MO.
Also surviving are six grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren, and five
great-great-grandchildren.
(*Myrtle
May Mahana, daughter of Bradley Brown Mahana and Elizabeth Taylor Mahana)
RITES SUNDAY FOR ROBERT JOHNRecord Herald
, Indianola, Iowa, December 12, 1954
Services
for Robert John 79, who died early Thursday morning at the home of his daughter,
Mrs. C. O. Davis, will be held at the Overton Funeral Home Sunday at 2:30 p. m.
Mr. John operated a grocery store in Beaverdale, a suburb of Des Moines,
before moving to Indianola. He and
his wife moved to the home of his daughter recently because of his illness.
Survivors include his wife and two daughters, Mrs. C. O. Davis of
Indianola, and Mrs. Harold Conner of Huntsville, Ark., and one son Robert John
of Kansas City.
Indianola
Record Herald and Tribune
Funeral services for C. O. Davis, 69, retired rural mail carrier, were
held Wednesday afternoon at the Overton Funeral Home with interment in the
Indianola IOOF Cemetery.
Mr. Davis died Monday morning at Iowa Methodist Hospital, Des Moines,
where he had been a patient since early Sunday.
A lifelong resident of Warren County, he lived just east of Indianola on
highway 92. He retired in 1960
after being a rural mail carrier 41 years.
He was a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church and the Odd Fellows Lodge.
Surviving are his wife, Josephine; two daughters,
(Gloria) Mrs. Harvey Henry of Iowa City and (Betty) Mrs. Robert Labertew of
Indianola; seven grandchildren; and one sister, Mrs. Daisy Butler of Indianola.
The
Des Moines Register, Wednesday, December 16, 1998,
Boone
Josephine (John) Davis Hornaday, 95, of Boone died of a heart ailment
Tuesday at Eastern Star Home there. Services
will be at 1:00 p.m. Saturday at Overton Funeral Home in Indianola with burial
at IOOF Cemetery there.
Mrs. Hornaday was born in Des Moines and had lived in the Indianola area
many years before moving to the Eastern Star Home in 1980.
She was a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church and Rebekah Lodge both of
Indianola, and GKM Ladies Club. She
was also active in Girl Scouts as a leader for several years.
She is survived by two daughters, Betty Labertew of Indianola and Gloria
Henry of Iowa City; seven grandchildren; and 10 great grandchildren.
Friends may
call Saturday at the funeral home from 10:30 a.m. until the time of services.
The family will be present from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Memorial contributions may be made for her church.
(Josephine May John was a daughter of Robert John and
Myrtle May Mahana John.
After the death of Charley Davis she married Homer Hornaday.)
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