of Menard and Mason Counties
By T.G. Onstott
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CHAPTER XXXVIII Page 353 We have sold the old home, where for thirty years we have lived, and in a few days shall leave it forever. We are not going but a few blocks away, but a feeling of sadness comes over us while the precious memories of the score and ten years we have lived in it is reproduced to our vivid imagination. When we moved in it the great rebellion had been subdued. We were just in the prime of our manhood, full of hope for the future, with a noble companion and children to share our joys. Our home at first was small, but additions from time to time made it commodious and pleasant. Our father came to spend his declining days with us, and for a number of years was a central figure, and we all vied with each other to make his last days pleasant, but the end came, and our father whose home was in the west room was not, "for God took him" in 1876. Kind friends bore him gently away to the Havana cemetery, where by the side of mother and Isaac, Mary Ann and William, he gently sleeps. There was one vacant chair, one missing link. Another year sped on and Ellen, the eldest, began to fade as the flower, and one morning a convoy of angels escorted her freed spirit to where "the flowers bloom forever and the fields are eternally fair." It was hard to say, "thy will be done." Next the faithful mother and wife came down to the river's brink, and with a heroic Christian faith passed over to the "shining shore." "The old home ain't like it used to be," and side by side in the beautiful cemetery of Pleasant Plains, they await the resurrection morn. "I sometimes dream their pleasant smiles still on me sweetly falls, their tones of love I faintly hear, my name in sadness call." No wonder the memories of the sad as well as pleasant hours I spent in the old home will, till life's latest breath be indelibly written on the tablet of my heart. These large maples were planted by my hand, the large oaks were small trees. Since I made the old home, a new generation has come upon the stage of action. Many who lived here and who have enjoyed the hospitalities of the old home have been called from labor to reward. We have strong attachments for our old homes, every time we visit Petersburg, we step in our early home and though strangers live there they bid us welcome. We have not made many moves in our pilgrimage. This will be the second. Our chickens have not been trained to lie on their backs and hold up their legs to be tied every time a covered wagon comes along. Three moves are as bad as a burnout, it is said. We shall try and not move the third time. It will take some time to get used to the new home. It is not so large and has not some of the conveniences of the old home, but we will try to adapt ourselves to the new home, and remember that while we have pleasant homes that this is not our abiding place, that we seek a better home, a "land that is fairer than day," a home in heaven, after we have crossed life's tempestuous sea, where the grand re-union with those gone before shall take place, in a home eternal in the heavens.
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