I
think anyone who is interested in family history will agree that one of the
first things searched for is the obituary of an ancestor. Although an obituary is only as good as the
informant, it is usually a helpful source to learn a little about the decedent,
his or her survivors and those who passed before them. If you are truly lucky it will contain a birth
date and the names of parents.
Every
now and then you find an extraordinary obituary which is almost a biography of
the subject. Such is the obituary of Eugenia
Kennedy Rist Smith published in the Upper Des Moines Republican on October 27,
1909. Although a little longer than a
normal post, I had to share it with you in its entirety.
MRS. LEWIS H. SMITH
Pioneer Algona Lady
Whose Death Last Week Is Deeply Mourned
Passing of a Good
Woman
After an illness of several weeks, Mrs.
Lewis H. Smith passed into rest last Friday morning. In her death Kossuth county loses one of the
oldest woman settlers, Mrs. Tom Robinson, Mrs. C. Hackman, now living at
Ortonville, Minnesota, with her children, and Mrs. Smith being the oldest
survivors among the women who came to the county to impress their influence
upon its development. Members of the
family had been summoned and all save three were present when the end
came. Mrs. Sam B. Baker of Tacoma,
Washington, Dick Rist of North Yakima, Washington, and Mrs. Howard J. Wallace
of Tooele, Utah, were unable to reach home before her going, though they
arrived later in the week.
The
funeral was held Sunday afternoon in the Congregational church, of which Mrs.
Smith was one of the charter members. Rev.
O.H. Holmes conducted the services. Dr.
Alf Rist, a nephew of Mrs. Smith, and Prof. Benjamin furnished the music. Those of the family present from away
were: Mr. and Mrs. Henry B. Smith,
Minneapolis; Mrs. S. B. Baker, Tacoma; Charles Rist, Lincoln, Neb.; Dick Rist,
North Yakima, Washington; Mr. and Mrs. George R. Horton, Chicago; Mrs. H. J.
Wallace, Tooele, Utah; Earl Humlong, Minneapolis; Alonzo L. Kennedy, Des
Moines.
The
church was filled with friends of the family, the old settlers, in particular,
being present in numbers. The services
were preceded by a short service at the home for the members of the immediate
family. Interment was at Riverview
cemetery.
Gastritis
was the cause of death. Mrs. Smith spent
several weeks in August visiting in Chicago, but has not been well since she
returned. She grew weaker very slowly and
for almost a week before she died was unconscious most of the time. Because of her inability to take sufficient
nourishment her strength gradually was sapped and she slept her life away
entirely free from the pain which was present earlier in her illness.
***
Eugenia
Kennedy Smith was born October 23, 1835, in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, a
village near Boston, then a quiet country town, today a manufacturing
center. She came of Puritan stock and
carried with her through life those high ideals which were inborn. That sterner quality of Puritanism which
knows little of tolerance, she did not have.
She was tolerant of others in a marked degree. None was ever turned from her doors though in
the early days, in the new western home, actual want was not always far from
the cabin in which she lived. Through
her life she clung closely to those ideals which were instilled in the New
England home, though her idea of right and justice was ever tempered for
others.
It
was not her privilege to have other than the common school education. The great cotton industry was in its infancy
and the mills were springing up in the villages about Boston. The place where she lived had a mill, and the
looms afforded a convenient income to the children of the community. With others of her family she worked in the
factory, many of her spare moments being spent, however, in the garden at home
where blossomed the sweet, old-fashioned flowers of which she never tired. When she went to the Rose Garden in Jackson
Park a few days before she left Chicago, in August, she renewed her
acquaintance with some of the flowers she had known in the home at Whitinsville,
and they brought to her the memory of the days when her mother taught the love
of growing things—of “good in everything.”
***
On August 23, 1954, she was married to Francis C. Rist, a brother of Sylvester S. Rist. They decided to make their home in the west and in 1855 the husband left Whitinsville for Iowa. A year later, in 1856, making the trip from Dubuque in a stage, the wife came to Kossuth county. They took up their claim south of town on the farm where Alonzo E. Kennedy lived for so many years. The original log cabin was not built where the present house stands. It was farther down the road, about half way to the old Paine house, where the site still may be seen in the edge of the woods. There was a cabin on the Rist place where the father-in-law lived while on the town site of Algona stood the “Bachelors’ Hall,” the Call cabin and one or two others scattered through the woods. Across the river was the cabin where the Brown family lived. The rest was unbroken prairie and virgin forest.
Only
those who have suffered the privations and the peril of pioneer life can
appreciate what the first winter in Iowa was to the woman who came from one of
the suburbs of Boston. “If we had only
known,” Mrs. Smith often said, “if we had only known enough to build our cabin
back in the woods where we might have dug into a side hill and been protected,
we might have been so comfortable.” But
they did not know, these two, and the cabin was built in the open on the edge
of the woods overlooking the prairie.
The winter came as only Iowa winters came in those early days, bringing
with it untold suffering. Mr. Rist, the
husband, drove a stage between Algona and Fort Dodge. Two or three days each week he was away, and
in addition to the other suffering was the constant, unspeakable dread of
Indians, added to the homesickness which gnawed at the heart in those fearful
days.
Wood
there was to burn, of course, and a stove in which to burn it, but the little
woman from Boston found it difficult indeed even to keep herself and baby from
freezing, to say nothing of keeping comfortable. “We kept on all our wraps as we worked in the
room,” she said as she talked of the early days. “I wore continually all the outer wraps I
could find and still we were cold. I
have sat with my feet on the rail of our little stove while my heels nearly
froze. The wind swept over the prairies
and through the walls of our cabin as though there were nothing to keep it
back.”
While
her husband was away his father was a frequent visitor at the home and did his
best to keep the wife and baby comfortable.
Many times she abandoned her home entirely and went to stay with the
older people in the cabin, which was a center for the settlers south of
town. Night after night, too the
settlers crowded into the “Father” Rist cabin, haunted by a terrible fear of
Indians. Many were the alarms and many
were the days and nights of suffering as they waited for the dreaded visits.
 |
But
out of it all they had their fun, and even incidents which seemed grave enough
at the time game them sport. “One night
as we were all in the Father Rist cabin waiting for the Indians, we heard very
strange noises outside. The men waited
with rifles in hand because we thought the Indians had surely come,” she
said. “The noises continued but they
seemed to come nearer, and finally the suspense was so great that my husband
declared that he was going out to find out whether the Indians were there or
not. So he and another slipped away into
the darkness. We all expected to hear
the war whoops, but in a moment we heard them laugh and shout for us to
come. We streamed out and found the
cattle had gotten out of the barn and the noises were coming from them. We had no Indians that night.”
As others of the pioneers came into the county
more social life became possible. They
were rare souls, those pioneers, ready with heart and hand to welcome a
newcomer, quick with sympathy to those in trouble, and happy and full of cheer
in spite of their vicissitudes.
They
were great visitors, and one description of a drive taken by the young couple
never failed to furnish amusement to those who loved to listen as Mrs. Smith told
of the early days in Algona. “We hitched
the cattle (oxen) to a stone boat one afternoon and my husband put a chair on
the boat. Then we drove off as
comfortable as you please to visit some people across the river, I with my baby
in my arms and he walking along beside the cattle.” It is a picture that will not fade from the
memory of those who caught the spirit of that ride from the white-haired woman
that told it like the queen she was, riding forth in her chariot.
Father
Taylor came in those years and shortly came his daughter Harriet, known to most
of the younger Algonians as Mrs. J. E. Stacy.
And how thoroughly appreciated were these new comers! What an addition they made to the little
settlement!
“I
will never forget the first day I saw Harriet,” said Mrs. Smith. “She came right from the East, and to our
eyes, which had long been unaccustomed to eastern things, she seemed to have
stepped right out of a picture. She came
to church on Sunday morning with her father and we were all so glad to see
her. I remember just how she was dressed
because we were all so far behind the fashions that every change was
noted. That Sunday was in 1857, and Mrs.
Stacy, then Miss Taylor, had arrived only the previous day.”
Father
Taylor, “his head white as the almond blossoms,” he of “the mild, grey eye,
gentle voice, alert motion and unbent form,” had joined the settlers the year
before and none was more active in his assistance than Mrs. Smith.
A
year after Mrs. Stacy came the Congregational church was founded. Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Stacy, Mr. and Mrs. George
D. Wheeler and Father Taylor were the charter members. Of the five only Mrs. Stacy now is left. Through many years Mrs. Smith has labored in
the church and in the society. In no
other institution did she take such deep interest as in its welfare. She was a constant attendant through
adversity and prosperity. Her loss will
fall heavily upon the society with which she has been so intimately connected
for the past fifty years.
***
This
social life of which the church played a considerable part, brought these
pioneers together more closely than it is possible as we live today. In the grove near the Free Methodist church
was a favorite picnic ground, and one Fourth of July celebration held there was
always a source of enjoyment. The
settlers gathered and spread out their lunch under the oaks. Then women, men and children went to the town
to join in the procession to march to the grounds. Astride a large horse rode the marshall of
the parade bedecked in a great scarlet scarf which streamed behind him as he
galloped up and down the line. “There
wasn’t a soul to watch us as we were all in the parade,” said Mrs. Smith. “But we marched bravely down to the picnic
grounds, the marshall shouting his commands from his horse. But when we got there he found no words
military enough to disperse us. So
rising in his stirrups he cried: ‘We are
a-goin’ for to go to the tables.’ And we
went.”
Of
such incidents her remarkable memory was filled. They were burned in her mind and softened by
the years which intervened they came to her pleasurably enough and relating
them she delighted her friends.
***
Five
children were born into the family, three of whom are still living, Charles W.,
Hiram Edwin and Dick Rist. But in 1873 (KCHB note: actually 1872), on Washington’s
birthday, the father died.
Another
member of this pioneer colony, one of the first “bachelors” in fact, was Lewis
H. Smith, now the oldest survivor of the settlers on Algona townsite. He was also from Boston and a friend of the
Rist family. He married Abbie L. Rist, a
sister of Francis Rist, and three children, Mary, now Mrs. H. B. Smith of
Minneapolis; Nellie E., now Mrs. S. B. Baker of Tacoma; and Annie S., Mrs. W.
H. Kennedy, now survive of that family.
Mrs. Abbie Rist Smith died before her brother, Francis C. Rist, was
taken, and December 8, 1872, the marriage occurred of Mr. Smith and Mrs.
Rist. Three children came to this union,
Mabel Francis, (Mrs. George R. Horton), Rubie Evans (Mrs. Howard J. Wallace),
and Hortense Morgan Smith, who lives at the home in Algona.
 |
| Lewis Smith |
Only
the immediate members of the family can know with what infinite tact and
patience the mother brought into this family a wonderful, enduring happiness—and
of the devotion which repaid this faithful service.
 |
| L to R: Ed Rist, Mary Smith, Fannie Smith, Eugenia, Dick Rist, Charles Rist, Nellie Smith and Ed Smith Photo taken shortly after marriage of Lewis Smith and Eugenia Rist |
Mrs.
Smith was a member of the Eastern Star order, the Women’s Relief Corps and the
Library Aid Society, to all of which she gave freely of her time.
***
Though
few outside her family have known it, Mrs. Smith for a number of years has been
a sufferer from pain which medical skill seemed powerless to counteract. This pain she had borne with such patience
that her work in the home and in the societies of which she was a member was
never neglected until within the past month.
The
malady which caused Mrs. Smith’s death seized her late in August. All through September she fought against its
ravages but without avail. Relief from
pain came only with an advanced stage of the disease, but it was a relief which
brought sleep. Through the last days she
awakened at intervals which became rarer as time wore on. She smiled and joked with the children. She seemed to believe that she would stay
with the family that worshipped her.
 |
| The Lewis Smith home |
But
on Friday morning she was at rest. The
members of the family who were in Algona were with her. On Saturday she would have been 74 year old—years
that brought to her a happiness which comes to those rare souls who have so
lived that there is nothing that may be spoken of them but words of good and
love and tenderness.
An extraordinary obituary about a remarkable life. May she continue to rest in peace.
Until next time,
Jean
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