Mary (Woodruff) Pierce
Died January 29, 1894
Died
In this city, January 29, of heart disease, Mary, wife of H.O. Pierce and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Woodruff, aged 30 years.
It is seldom so few words tell so sad a story. The announcement that it is ended will recall to a very wide circle of friends that it was a beautiful life lived out here in our midst and had its type in some flower we watched in its budding and blossoming and alas! its premature cutting down. It was life we had seen in a happy, carefully molded girlhood till it merged in equally happy womanhood and wifehood, in which parental love blended with a husband’s devotion to make the most perfect conditions for development. The result was a character that will be missed by her church, and as well as in the literary and artistic circles in which she was such a power, and the social circles that knew so well her hospitality and helpfulness. It was a life that constantly acquired friends and never lost one. Underneath the artistic gifts and literary acquirements and social qualities were the more substantial vital elements of character, benevolence, unselfishness, courage of opinion, heart strength and patience in severest trial, that inspires the reflection how well it will be with this soul translated to all glorious things emancipated from all earth’s hindrances.
“Somewhere in worlds we dream of
Beyond the grave’s cold sod,
The soul of her we loved so
Stands face to face with God.
As birds that dread the winter
Fly southward to the sun,
Her soul sought endless summer
And deathless youth is won.
For her, heaven’s gates have opened
To peace that will not end;
She gains all things she longed for
And we have lost a friend.”
(Source: Niles Daily Star, Monday, Jan. 29, 1894, page 2, col. 3, microfilm Niles District Library)