Miami Union

March 9, 1911 

REIBER, JACOB - After several days suffering "Uncle Jake" Reiber, whose critical illness was detailed in the last issue of the Miami Union, passed away shortly after midnight last Friday.  The funeral was held from the Progressive Brethren church at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon short services having been previously held at the house.  The church was crowded with sincere mourners for the dead man, to whom the able discourse of Rev. A. M. Kerr brought much comfort.  Rev. Kerr, whose acquaintance with "Uncle Jake" was particularly intimate, read the following obituary:  Three quarters of a century ago the first of next September, in Perry county, Pennsylvania, was born he for whom these last services are held today.  When the child was less than a year old, his parents came with him to make their home in Ohio.  He grew up on a farm and about his father's smithy, and his early life was that incident to the boyhood of that early day.  Deprived of a thorough education, he yet worked out enough training to fit him for life and enable him to do much service along mental lines.  When only a boy he began to write for the local papers, and for long years he has been a correspondent to one or more of them.  Thru the columns of these periodicals he has made a large circle of acquaintances and has been highly esteemed as one of the most faithful and versatile reporters for our county press.  He has formed for himself an inimitable position among his associate correspondents and his pen name of "Uncle Jake" has come to be known far and near and to be characterized by the happy, jovial disposition that was always his own under any and all difficulties.  For nine years he has been the correspondent of the Miami Union at this place, and at the time of his death was the president of their Correspondents' association.  As one of the oldest reporters in the county, he will be sadly missed and it will be difficult to find one to so well fill the place he has vacated.  On the fifth of October, 1863, Mr. Reiber enlisted in Company G of the 110th O. V. I. and went to the service of his country as a warrior.  He was seriously wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness and taken to the Armory Square hospital in the city of Washington.  He was a member of the Grand Army Post, in which he filled the office of Adjutant.  He was the secretary of his own company and the secretary of his regimental association.  For a number of years he was postmaster, he filled the unexpired term of the first mayor of Pleasant Hill, and at one time was township clerk.  At the time of his death he was president of the county board of charity and corrections, and president of the Reiber family reunion.  At the age of twenty-one he was married to Miss Maria Williams, of this county, who has preceded him in death.  To them were born five children, only two of whom are living: Ella J., who has been a most faithful daughter and loving homemaker for her parents in their old age; and the son Warren, who today is detained in his far-away Colorado home.  The son Charles was buried from this house less than nine months ago.  For thirty years the father of Mr. Reiber, was a deacon in the Christian church and at the age of 17 the son began the Christian life.  He was greatly devoted in his own church, and a most constant attendant.  Since I have been his pastor, he has seldom missed a service without previously coming to me and asking to be excused, and in many such little ways he manifested his kindness to the pastor and his interest in the success of the work.  During his last sickness he spoke a number of times of death in very tranquil tones and with a smile on his face said it mattered not how soon he entered into the rest that awaited him.  Uncle Jake held a unique position in this community.  His light-hearted disposition made for him many friends.  He was at almost every gathering of every nature.  Few men, if any, of this town, were more widely known than he.  A half-dozen offices are made vacant by his death, and many a gathering will seem incomplete without him.  No one will be able to take the place he made for himself and for so many years has so characteristically and uniquely filled.

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