EVA WILDER ROSE

Eva Alida Wilder as born August 18, 1852, on the farm east of Orland. She was the daughter of Orlando and Ursula Wilder, early pioneers of this Vermont settlement. She had two brothers: Lyman, dying when but a child, and Edson A. Wilder, who passed away April 9, 1927.

Her education was received in the schools of Orland, the Ladies' Seminary of Kalamazoo, and at Hillsdale College. February 21, 1877, she was united in marriage to Milton T. Rose and the happy couple took up their home on the farm where she was born. Hers proved to be a life of service. Both she and her husband were active members in the Congregational church and Sunday school, also in all community affairs they were ready with hands and purse to do their part.

Hers was the hand to care for the sick and to steady the feet of the aged. Great-grandfather [Rev. Luman Parsons Rose] and Grandmother Rose [Emeline Starr Rose] found a welcome under this roof in their declining years. Her father [Orlando Wilder] was tenderly cared for over three years in his last illness and for over three years she was a constant nurse and companion to her invalid mother [Ursula Humphrey Wilder]. Next the husband [Milton T. Rose] was stricken with an incurable disease which terminated in his death July 29, 1908.

No children were born into this home, but in September 1900, Miss Mattie Meyers came into the family and was loved and looked upon as a daughter until her death October 10, 1923.

Eva has met the joys and the sorrows that fall to each human life and bravely carried on alone much of the time in her declining years but strong in the faith of Him who heals all our afflictions.

She was the last of her immediate family to be called home and she answered the summons February 3, 1928, after a few weeks of illness, aged seventy-five years, 6 months and twenty-one days.

She was weary and has long been waiting for the call to come and today shrouded in her immaculate robe, asleep beneath the flowers she has come back home and we with bowed heads will bear her body to its last resting place in God's Acres and placing it beside the dear ones she so often expressed a desire to join, may be "pause and breathe a prayer above the sod, and leave her in her rest and God."

Funeral services were held at the home of Mrs. Julia Wilder, conducted by Rev E.W. Gray. Burial in Greenlawn cemetery."

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Handwritten date: 2/28/1928

"In the going of Mrs. Eva Rose the home in Coldwater [Michigan] loses one of its most highly respected ladies, and companions, and though she was not in good health during her stay there, she gave the best of her life she had to give. During the holidays she came to visit her sister-in-law, Mrs. E.A. Wilder [Julia] and family, and was taken ill while here, not regaining her usual condition of health and strength upon her return to Coldwater, and passed away Wednesday morning, Feb. 8. Thus another one of Orland's most highly esteemed ladies has passed on to the great beyond. Funeral services were held Friday at 10:00 a.m., at the home of Mrs. Julia Wilder. Her former pastor, the Rev. E.W. Gray, delivered the sermon. Burial was in charge of L.N. Klink, of Angola. Interment took place at Greenlawn beside that of her husband."

Submitted by: Jim Cox
nyclvr2012@gmail.com