Bible - Marnie
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, 17 April 1896
Word was received Tuesday of the death of Marnie Bible, daughter of ex-Sheriiff Bible. She died in Colorado where her parents had taken her for her health. The funeral occurred at Linden on Thursday afternoon upon the arrival of the family. - transcribed by Kim H
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 1 May 1896
Marnie Bible, whose beautiful life and early death have left the deepest impression of love, admiration and regret of all who knew her, died at Trinidad, Colo., on the 11th days of April, 1896, at the age of 15 years. Receiving all aid that skill could devine, sympathy suggest and love administer (*typed as written) she fell a victim to that disease that baffles all earthly science. With the gentleness of affliction and sympathy, her friends sought to encourage her by telling her not to think so seriously of her complaint that she would require a little medicine and tender nursing and that she would soon be better. The change in Marnie’s health was not rapid. She still moved on in her daily vocations. But with tender solicitude and anxiety her friends regarded the color that lighted up her cheeks at evening and made her pleasant face even beautiful as she touched the piano with playful hand and sang sweetly, so mellow and yet so mournful. Hoping that her health might be restored by a change of climate, with her parents, she went to Colorado, but from the time of her arrival there, she commenced sinking rapidly and her suffering was severe indeed, and though the fair shadow still lives on, ‘twas mid racking pain and degrees of suffocation as she sat in her easy chair supported by pillows and her breath came heavily, and with much apparent difficulty from her half parted lips and how attenuated were those beautiful features, but a calmness is on her brow that breathes of heaven. The closing scene was evidently drawing near. A telegram hastily summoned the writer to her bedside. The lights had faded in the west when we directed our course to a cottage near the mountains where the sick girl lay. Our path lay through a romantic valley, whose beauties at another time we might have lingered to observe, but now we bestowed hardly a thought on the picturesque scenery. We entered the open door of the cottage and a painful fear that there was a cause for the stillness which reigned weighed heavily upon our spirits. The hushed fall of the footsteps, the sorrowing look told in language not to be mistaken that death was there; that as spring gave place to summer the gentle Marnie departed to that land where spring ever abides. The end was peaceful. A lingering gleam of light glanced through the western window and lit the face of the dying, so soon like that to disappear. And there she lay, the tangled masses of her unconfined hair contrasting strangely with the fair complexion upon which even now a death like paleness rested. The dark eyes were lit with a strange brightness as she gave one lingering look at her father and the long lashed drooped on the snowy cheek as she was heard to whisper, “You’ll stay with me, won’t you papa?” We can look with some complacency upon the departure of the aged, who like the ripe grain of autumn, bends submissively to the reaper, death. But how different are our sensations when we see one like Marnie Bible, whose face beams with the smile of innocence, and whose young heart is unstained by sin, sinking beneath the relentless hand of death, and almost as soon as life is given, yielding it back to God. We then feel emotions of sorrow stealing over our soul; but our sadness is in some degree mitigated by the purity of the spirit which has just taken its flight, like some fair bud of promise which withered ere it bloomed, as the trembling dewdrops which at eve, imprisoned in the rose, but which, at noon, being dissipated by the genial beams of the sun, leaves the cold earth and flies upward to the bright source of life and light. - thanks so much to S for adding to this sweet gal's life
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 17 April 1896
New Richmond news -- Great sympathy is felt here for the family of John Bible who buried their daughter here on Thursday. She was a bright, sweet girl who was loved by all who knew her.