SEPTEMBER 28, 1911
AGED SHAKER CROSSES THE BAR
ELDRESS HESTER FROST
Death has removed from the ranks of the fast diminishing people, called Shakers, at Union Village, Eldress Hester Frost, a most worthy and amiable sister in her 85th year. She was born in the state of New York, in 1827, but her parents removed to Cincinnati in 1839 and at the tender age of 12 she came to live at the then flourishing Shaker settlement of Whitewater, where she resided till about 1860 when she was transferred to the fast declining society of Waterviet. That was her home till 1900 when that branch was disbanded and she, and the few other old people there, consolidated with Union Village where she has since resided.
Of Eldress Hester, it can be said she was a woman of strong spiritual, convictions and the faith she imbued in her young womanhood, together with the emotional phase of religious exercises (now happily a thing of the past - were to her very sacred. Still she constantly kept in touch with the advanced views of the day; her life, like one of old was spent in good works and there is comfort in the thought that "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die," and for years to come Eldress Hester's friends will say with Bulower Lytton:
"There is no death; an angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread;
And then we call -them dead."
The best medical skill was in daily, attendance upon her. Tender and loving hands ministered to her every want but she quietly sank to sleep on the night of the 17th.
Her declining years were embittered by the unnecessary vicissitude, that caused her two - former homes to pass into the hands of strangers, and with the knowledge of the doom of Union Village, for graft and greed, at the instigation of the Eastern Ministry whom she once honestly (but mistakenly) looked upon as her spiritual leaders, human nature at last revolted and she requested (which is the wish of many others, including the writer) that her remains should receive Sepulchral rites in the Lebanon cemetery and not in Shaker soil.
In accordance with her wish her remains rest there where a suitable headstone will mark her resting place.
The large assembly hall of the family dwelling was filled with friends and neighbors. The simple and impressive burial service of the Presbyterian church was conducted by the Rev. Dr. Gowdy who briefly dwelt on the consolation to be found in the 23rd Psalm. Appropriate musical selections were beautifully rendered- by Mr. and Mrs. Will R. Lewis, Mr. Ed S. Conklin and Miss Mildred Conklin.
Resting on the casket were some beautiful floral offerings bearing cards from Judge and Mrs. Runyan, Sister Molly, Mrs. Emily Beach and a beautiful tribute from the employees Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Brown, Margaret Sesher and Stella Hysten.
As the setting sun was slowly sinking in the west on the 19inst. the
funeral cortege entered the City of the Dead, where a brief invocation
was offered by the officiating clergyman and amid suppressed emotion the
remains were committed to their narrow house of clay and from many hearts
doubtless assended the prayer.
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies,
Heavens' morning breaks and earths vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
-M. S. M.