Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2016 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== The Petoskey Record Wednesday, October 4, 1893 A SWEET, YOUNG LIFE'S END. DEATH OF OLLIE HARWOOD, AFTER A LONG ILLNESS Nine Weeks of Suffering Closded on Wednesday by the Passing Away of the Gentle Girl Whom Every One in Petoskey Knew And Loved. Shortly after noon on Wednesday, Sept. 27, OLLIE HARWOOD, whose long illness has been frequently noted in THE RECORD, breathed her last. Miss HARWOOD was the only daughter of G. M. HARWOOD, proprietor of the Central drug store. She was just 16 years and 14 days of age. All of her life had been spent in Petoskey, where she was born. Her bright face and winning smile were known to us all. The funeral services which occurred at the HARWOOD home on Friday at 2 p.m., attested in some measure the love in which she was held. The services were conducted by Rev. F. L. THOMPSON, assisted by Rev. WYLIE K. WRIGHT. The latter read an appropriate selection from the scriptures, and offered prayer. Mr. THOMPSON of whose Sunday school OLLIE was a member, spoke with simple and touching eloquence of the sweetness of the life that had been cut short, and of the lesson the death conveyed. The Presbyterian church choir sang several hymns with beauti- ful effect, and Miss EMMA WINGETT'S fine voice was heard in the solemnly touching words of "Calvary," a song that was a favorite with OLLIE and the music of which she had given to Miss WINGETT during her illness. The house was crowded with sympathetic and sorrowing friends. Seldom if ever have so many representative business men of the city been noted at a funeral in Petoskey as were present on this occasion. There were also in attendance, of course, a very large num- ber of OLLIE'S school friends. The floral tributes were very numerous and of rare beauty. It would be impossible to give here a full list of them, but among the donors and pieces noted were these: Mr. and Mrs. CHURCHILL, anchor; Methodist Sunday school, large pillow, "Asleep in Jesus;" Mrs. LIBBIE ROSE, bell, tube roses; Mr. and Mrs. W. D. SNYDER, beautiful wreath; large pillow of white roses, with the name "OLLIE," MARGARET HAUKEY, VEA HUNTLEY, EMMA WACHTEL, BURTO McKENZIE, LILLIE HARNER, FRED NEWBERRY, MAE BEAHAN, KENNY KILBORN and JENNIE CASKEY; CHARLES WORDEN, ERNEST OHLE and WILL McCUNE, white roses; Mr. and Mrs. C. A. E. FISK, large cross; GERTRUDE BLAKELY, pink roses; Mrs. MOSSMAN and Mr. and Mrs. BENEDICT, white roses and carnations; Mr. and Mrs. W. E. BROWNLEE of Denver, Colo., cross; Mr. and Mrs. FRED BAUERLE, WILL TRACEY and ARCHIE PETREE, pillow, "Rest;" eleventh grade pupils, carnations; Mr. and Mrs. H. BURR LEE, yellow roses; Mrs. PASSAGE, white roses; Mr. and Mrs. GEORGE ROBINSON, begonia blossoms; Mr. and Mrs. GEORGE BUMP, wreath of sweet peas; Mrs. GEORGE E. SPRANG and Miss ELLA WILSON, white asters; Mr. and Mrs. M. F. QUAINTANCE, basket asters; Mrs. C. J. PA**THORP, basket begonia blossoms; Mrs. B. H. COOK, pillow "OLLIE;" Mrs. W. L. CURTIS, sweet peas and asters; CARL RUCH, basket asters; Mrs. F. J. SMITH, basket asters; Miss STELLA WILLIAMS, basket; Mrs. CELIA LONGYEAR, Lansing, Mich., wreath of roses, pinks and begonias; Mrs. A. D. PHELPS, basket pansies; Mrs. C. E. ALDRICH, pillow of geraniums, Mr. and Mrs. FRANK MARSHALL, Bridgeport, Conn., sickle of tube roses and yellow roses; Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS KIRKLAND, basket roses; Mrs. W. R. KILBORN, basket asters and sweet peas; Mrs. R. T. PHILLIPS, basket asters; Mr. and Mrs. B. H. COOK; basket sweet peas; C. M. EDMONDS, Jr., cut flowers; Miss **DA McBURNEY, white asters; A. M. DAGGETT, choice basket asters and smilax; Mrs. CUSHMAN and Mrs. ROWAN, choice boquet; Mrs. McKENZIE, boquet sweet peas; Mrs. QUALLENS, calla lily and geranium leaves; VERA HUNTLEY and BURTO McKENZIE, sweet peas; boquet geraniums, VERA ALDRICH; the pall bearers, yellow roses; the honorary bearers, sweet peas. The pall bearers were six young gentleman friends of OLLIE, while six of her young girl schoolmates acted as honorary pall bearers. The bearers were WILL McCUNE, WILL GIBSON, CHARLES WORDEN, ERNEST OHLO, KENNY KILBORN and FRED NEWBERRY, and the honorary bearers were JENNIE CASKEY, MARGARET HAUKEY, VERA HUNTLEY, BARTO McKENZIE, EMMA WACHTEL and LILLIAN HARNER. The funeral cortege was very large; between 30 and 40 carriages being in line. As a part of the funeral service Rev. THOMPSON read an obituary prepared at the minister's request by an intimate friend of OLLIE. It presented so truly the facts of a beauti- ful life and a peaceful death that it is given in full below. There is little need to speak to these friends assembled here of the life and character of the gentle girl whose worn and wasted mortal body lies in this white casket. OLLIE HARWOOD was born in Petoskey and all her little life of sixteen years has been spent on the shores of this blue bay. For six years she was an only child. Then a brother came - now a stout boy of ten. These were the only children of this home, and OLLIE, the elder, was its especial sunshine. Though just ready to enter womanhood she was to the last a child. Less mature and more frail than most girls of her age, she never cared for the dress or the manners of a "young lady." Her soul was a child's - spotless - and her heart and her mind were virgin pure. Yet she was not wholly a child. She showed great aptitude at school, and in music was unusually proficient. She was quick, vivacious, and sunny. In a group of school girls she was always a central figure. At home she was a companion and confidant to her mother. On Sundays, the only day of rest her busy father could ever give himself, she loved to sit at the piano and lull him to sleep, while many young girls were out for Sunday afternoon rambles or visits. Indeed, her home was her great delight, and the tendrils of her love clung al- ways about her father and her mother, her little brother and the aged grandmother, who has been a member of this household since OLLIE'S birth, and who made her little pillow on which the baby's head first rested and on which the tired child lay last Wednesday when she died. The maxim, "speak only good words of the dead," is as much respected with us as with the Romans, who coined the phrase. But of OLLIE - as of very few - it can be truly said that only good words were spoken of her during her life. She was the type of girl we call sweet. Her face was sunny, her eyes mischievous but kind, she had a nod and a smile for every passer-by, and was always ready with a word of sympathy for suffering. Her schoolmates remember her as a peace-maker and a friend of any child who might for any reason be less popular than the rest. She was keenly sensitive - too much so, some- times - and an unkindness done one young friend by another al- ways hurt her. Few, if any, of her intimates can recall an angry word or surly tone from her. Her life was pure white, and her memory will be a solace and a lesson to those who knew her. Through the nine long weeks of her illness she never complained except when excrutiating pain forced from her a cry of agony. Her sufferings, in the early stages of the disease, were most intense. Yet during all this time she was brave and stout of heart. She would joke with her parents to show them that her courage was strong, though in all those nine weeks she never had strength to rise to a sitting posture. The last ten days she was unable to speak and near the end she could not even make signs upon her fingers, so great was her weakness. Still she was brave and bright. The day before she died she tweaked her mother's nose with her poor, thin fingers, no doubt to show the anxious watcher that her heart was not faint. During one of the long nights the little sufferer wanted something, but could [not] make those at her bedside understand. Finally one of her attendants asked, "Shall I call mamma? She will know what you mean." But the patient child shook her head. She knew that her mother had gone to get a little much-needed rest and OLLIE did not want her to be disturbed. Day by day she sank. Everything that the tenderest love and the most constant care could give her was hers. The best medi- cal skill that could be provided, the most careful nursing, the prayers of those who loved her were all in vain to save her for this world. During the last two weeks she suffered very little, her only discomforts, apparently, being the minor aches and pains resulting from having lain upon her couch so long. The tired, worn little body simply grew less and less each day until it was emaciated almost pas belief. Her vitality left her, little by little, painlessly but surely. About an hour before the end she lost consciousness for the first time and her breathing grew every minute weaker. Then she opened her big brown eyes and turned them first to father and then to mother. After this mute farewell, calmly and almost imperceptibly her breathing ceased, as a breeze dies out on yonder lake at sunset. It was a beautiful death, if things so sad are ever beautiful. The following was read in the eleventh grade class in English literature on the afternoon of OLLIE'S death: "And then I think of one who, in her youthful bounty died; The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so loved should have a life so brief. Yet not un**** it was that one like that young friend of ours. Should perish with flowers." Mr. and Mrs. HARWOOD desire through THE RECORD to express their heartfelt gratitude for the tokens of love and sympathy shown by a host of friends during OLLIE'S long illness and at the time of her death. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Transcriber's Note: Miss Ollie F. Harwood was born in 1877 to Guy M. and Emma Harwood. Her cause of death is listed on record as "Neumonia." ==========================================================================