Elizabeth Satterthwait 1839-1918

SATTERTHWAIT, WRIGHT, SPALDING, WARD, HODGES, LAIRD

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 12/6/2018 at 09:23:02

18 April 1918 - West Branch Times

Elizabeth J. Wright was born in Guernsey Co., Ohio, Tenth month eighteenth, 1839. Early in life she became a member of the Society of Friends and has been faithful to its principles her entire life. The family later removed to Washtenaw Co. Mich. where she was married to Henry C. Spalding, Third month eighteenth, 1871, where she lovingly cared for his four motherless children between the ages of two and twelve years. She took these children to her heart and mothered them as tenderly as she did the son and daughter who came to bless this union. Theirs was a happy home until on May 8, 1887 the death angel bore the husband and father away and the following year took also the eldest son, on whom the mother was learning to depend to fill his father's vacant place. Even then her faith in her Savior triumphed over death and looking forward to a reunion beyond the grave she bravely went on. Four years later Elizabeth Spalding with her children returned to Ohio.

Here near Barnesville on the twenty ninth of Fourth month 1896 she became the wife of Nathan Satterthwait and came with him to Iowa, making their home in West Branch for a time, then in West Liberty, where death claimed the husband leaving her again a widow.

Since that time she has lived most of the time in West Branch with her daughter, and during the past few years they have given a home to five motherless grandchildren.

Elizabeth Satterthwait was true to her friends, and often spoke of how wrong she felt it to be to speak ill of any one. This testimony she bore, not only with her lips, but by her life. She loved to be in her place in the house of worship, and it was a trial to her during the years of declining health, that she was so often detained from meeting. She had been a patient sufferer for years, helping what she could, in her own home and at the Sewing Circle of which she was an interested member.

On the morning of Fourth month, eleventh, 1918, her freed spirit took its flight to her prepared mansion, and was at home with Him whom her soul loved.

Four of her children remain to miss a mother's presence and loving messages: Margaret E. Ward and Ida J. Hodges of Boon, Mich., Clarence W. and Serena M. Spalding of West Branch. Two children, Wm. Spalding and Lulu Laird, passed on before her.

The sweet influence of such a life can never die, but will live on in the lives of children, grandchildren and all those whose lives came in close contact with her life. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.