Obituary: Kate Tearney Walsh

IN MEMORIAM.
Died, October 8th, 1873, after a long illness, KATE L., daughter of Edward and Jane E. Tearney, of Harper’s Ferry, and wife of John Walsh, of Cumberland, Md., aged twenty-six years.
The trite phrases of obituary notices would fail to convey an adequate idea of the feeling elicited in this community by the death of this estimable lady, for her character was one of extraordinary amiability, and the sympathies of her many friends and acquaintances are excited to a corresponding degree by her early death. The favorite child of exemplary and indulgent parents, her training from childhood was such as to develop the natural excellence of her character, and never, perhaps, were the advantages of early moral and religious teachings more forcibly illustrated than in her pure life and edifying death. Surrounded from her infancy with all the comforts and elegancies of life and educated in all the accomplishments known to the day, she exhibited in her manners a rare christian humility which made her the idol of her acquaintances– snatched at an early age by death, from the happiest surroundings and the ministrations of the most devoted parental and conjugal love, she manifested a perfect christian resignation.
The services at her funeral were singularly impressive. Every thing combined to make them peculiarly touching. The exalted characters of her parents and husband– her youth, beauty and accomplishments– but above all her many eminent virtues gave an additional pathos to the solemn ceremonies of the Church. From the silver-haired priest who officiated at the altar to the child of tender years, the assembled multitude were melted into tears and an air of indescribable sadness has ever since pervaded this whole community. Her worthy parents and estimable husband have the unbounded sympathy of all, but their greatest consolation is that THEIR temporal loss is HER eternal gain.

She is gone to the land of spirits blessed To Him who “gives his beloved rest,”
And soonest takes from the world of care
His most beloved and happy there.

No cloud obscured the October sky
To darken the path to her home on high,
And Heaven’s bright sun with effulgence shone, —
A type of the glory to which she is gone.

The matron staid and the maiden fair,
The care-worn man with grizzled hair,
The old and the young their tribute gave
Of tears to moisten our darling’s grave.

God’s holy minister wept with them
As he chanted the solemn requiem,
And his plaintive voice had a saddler tone,
Though he knew her soul had Heaven-ward flown.

The tears we shed were not those of pain–
They fell like the gentle summer rain.
Our Father smote, but we kissed the rod,
For we knew our loved one was with her God.
Requiescat in pace.

AMISCUS.
Harper’s Ferry, October 13th, 1873.”