Miami Union
November 4, 1897
Mary Louise Harness
Mary Louise Harness, born September 21, 1844, near Midway, Clark County, Ohio, died at 5 o'clock Friday afternoon, October 22, 1897, at Troy. Her parents, Lawson D. and Hannah Herman, preceded her to the better land many years ago. Shortly after the war a young stockman, Abel A. Harness by name, who, on his periodical trips through this section of the State was wont to stop at her parental home for rest, formed the acquaintance of Mary Louise. The friendship here began ripened into love, and on November 20, 1866, they were married. Their life was happy and prosperous until his death, June 6, 1888. Their three sons, William E., of Troy, Harry E. of Dayton, and Marion F., of Lima, survive them. Her two brothers, J. Wesley Herman, of Troy, and J. T. Herman, of Alcony, are well known and highly respected citizens. In her early life her manners were graceful and dignified, her general appearance never failing to command the respect and esteem of all with whom she came in contact. She was not so eminent for any one quality of worth as for the union of those amiable and good qualities so rarely combined in the same character. Her later years were ones of suffering, but never until the last few years did she yield her determination to perform her duties, her unconquerable will power keeping her many times in their discharge when other people would have given up in despair. In principle and practice she was a Christian from early childhood until stricken and shattered by disease. While at her father's home and during the first ten years of her married life she was a faithful attendant at public worship. It is only when a life fades away in the calm promise of an eternal day, when the diseases flesh is heir to are over that we attain the full fruition of human hopes and can say with the poet"
"There is no death!
The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore,
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forevermore."
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