KAY LASH COLLECTION, CARNEGIE PUBLIC LIBRARY, ANGOLA, 
INDIANA

RACHEL (GRAY) BARNARD, 15 NOV 1815 - 30 APR 1905

                  Mrs. John B. Barnard

   On April 30th, 1905, in the home of her daughter, 
Mrs. O. R. Taylor, Mrs. John B. Barnard peacefully 
passed into her eternal rest.  Grandma, for as such we 
all knew her, was born Nov. 15, 1815, in Windsor, 
Ashtabula County, Ohio, and in the fall of 1836 she 
with her parents removed to Steuben county, Ind., where 
she lived until Nov 15, 1892, when she left her Orland 
home for California, settling in Kern county.  In 1900 
she removed from Rosedale to Panama, the place of her 
death.  In 1840 she married John B. Barnard, whom she 
survived thirty-two years, he having died in 1873.  Two 
children were born to them, J. E. Barnard now living at 
Glennville, Cal., and Mrs. O. R. Taylor of Panama.  In 
1853, in Orland, she with her family united with the 
Congregational church in which communion she lived and 
died.  Her father was of the old Orthodox kind.  To her 
the Bible was God's word from cover to cover.  Higher 
criticism found no place in her heart or mind.  To her 
to follow Christ was a duty, although full of pleasure.  
Personal convenience or gain were no excuse for neglect 
of duty.  Cheerful attendance was to her a pleasure.  
She retained her mental vigor almost to the last, 
taking a new interest in passing events.  Her life, 
beginning in the dawn of the nineteenth century and 
lopping over into the twentieth was certainly an 
eventful one in that it spanned that period of the 
world's greatest achievement.
   In closing this short sketch of the life of Mrs. 
Barnard, we publish the following, written by her own 
hand in June 1897, while living at Rosedale, 
California:
   "I was born in the state of Ohio, Ashtabula county, 
town of Windsor, Nov. 15, 1815, and lived there until I 
was almost twenty one.  Then I moved with my parents to 
Indiana in the fall of 1836.  We settled in the town of 
Millgrove where I lived fifty-six years.  The village 
of Orland then had no name, it was so new.  November 
15, 1892, we left our Orland home for California that 
being my 77th birthday and I have since made Rosedale my 
home.  I wish to have some remarks made at my funeral 
from Romans 6:23."
   Grandma's friends both old and young were many, as 
the beautiful floral tributes testified.  May her 
testimony to Christ's love and the life he asks us to 
live be as inspiring to her children, grandchildren and 
friends as she would wish, is our prayer.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

   Rachel (Gray) Barnard, 15 Nov 1815 - 30 Apr 1905, on 
24 Mar 1840, married John B. Barnard who died on Jul 
1873, aged 62 years, 2 months and 22 days.  He is 
buried at Carleton Cemetery, Steuben County, Indiana.  
Note in "Cemeteries of Steuben County, Indiana, 1990," 
by Audree Seibel Lewis, Vol. 1, page 90, states, "No 
monument has been found for her but she is probably at 
Carleton Cemetery, east of Orland.

Submitted by Mona Hilden-Beckwith
e-mail:  hilbeck@voyager.net