Fordyce Obituary

Leah Headlee Lemley Obituary
1912

Mrs. David Lemley
Mrs. Leah Lemley, widow of David Lemley, deceased, and one of the oldest residents of Greene county, died at her home in Mt. Morris, Wednesday, March 13, aged 90 years. Mrs. Lemley had been in her usual health on retiring Tuesday evening, and Wednesday morning she was found seriously ill, having sustained a stroke of paralysis during the night. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and was highly esteemed. The following children survive: Charles Lemley, Mrs. M. J. Headlee, D. N. Lemley, Harvey Lemley, all of Mt. Morris, and Mrs. William Delaney, Wadestown, W. Va. One sister survives, Mrs. Mary Woodruff, of Jollytown. Mrs. Lemley also leaves 35 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren. The funeral was held on Friday. Interment in the Mt. Morris cemetery.
Waynesburg Republican, March 21, 1912 (Greene County, PA)

In Memoriam
Leah Headlee-Lemley was born August 31, 1822. She was the daughter of Charles and Mary Garney Headlee. Born on Shannon run, in Perry township, her early life was spent in that community. Long before the building of a church in the Shannon run vicinity, the itinerant Methodist Episcopal preacher conducted ser-vices in the neighborhood, either at the home of Abraham Delany or that of Eli Headlee. It was at a service on one of these occasions when Leah Headlee, a girl of thirteen years, was converted by giving her heart to the Savior and her name to the church. For more than three-quarters of a century she lived a consistent christian life. Leah Headlee was united in marriage with David Lemley, Sept. 10, 1840. Mr. Lemley preceded his beloved wife to the better land by a duration of almost eleven years, departing this life March 24, 1901. To this union were born eight children, one of whom, Asbury, died in early childhood. Nannie Lemley Woodruff, wife of the Rev. Elwood Woodruff, of the East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, was called from labor to reward some twenty years ago. George Lemley, of Mt. Morris, heard and answered the call, "It is enough, come up higher," only a few short weeks before his beloved mother answered the summons, "come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Mrs. Lemley leaves to mourn her departure one sister, Mrs. Mary Woodruff, of California. Charles H. Lemley, the oldest of this family of children, survives his mother, also Mary J. Lemley Headlee, a daughter, Harvey Lemley, a son, Sarah Lemley Delany, a daughter of St. Leo, W. Va., and David Newton Lemley, the youngest son and child of the family, all of Mt. Morris, Pa., save the exception noted above.
The greater part of the married life of Mrs. Lemley was spent on the home in which she died, about one mile west of Mt. Morris, on one of those spacious bottom lands for which the valley of old Dunkard is so noted. Here at this spot so dear to the memory of so many "sorrowing not without hope" loved ones; here where this grand old stream strikes out boldly from the base of the almost precipitous hill making its wide circle about the fertile fields for a distance of a mile or more and returning to the same hill only a few hundred yards whence it left this protecting shelter; here surrounded by creek and hill with sentinels of oak, spruce and birch, as it were hemmed in from the outside world, yet where the most hospitable welcome was always accorded acquiantance and stranger alike, her relatives and friends, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren received blessingand happiness and good will unstinted. Truly this couple of pioneers (for such they may be termed) not only cleared the forest and cultivated the land, but laid well and deeply the foundation of christian character, which leads to the highest ideal of manhood and womanhood. Here grandfather and grandmother Lemley spent the greater part of their married life, and here the bereft widow, mother and grandmother waited with loving patience the coming of her Lord. How oft she said to her loved ones, "I thought, yea even hoped during the night He would take me to Himself and home and the loved ones who have gone on before."
The life of Mrs. Lemley, which was drawing toward the century mark, was one of great activity and untiring service. For the past few years her strength, both in body and mind, had waned. During the winter she was seriously ill, but just previous to death, was thought to be better. On the morning of her demise she was taken suddenly worse and did not rally. As the day drew on and evening approached, the evntide, the setting sun in her life went down, not out, March 13, 1912, to rise and shine on a fairer shore. The funeral service was conducted on Friday, March 15, 1912, at 10 a.m., in the Methodist Protestant church, at Mt. Morris, Rev. J. H. Mossberg, pastor, Rev. L. S. Anyill, of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, offered prayer; Rev. F. L. Teets, of the Methodist Episcopal church, read the scripture; Rev. Stewart, Mrs. Lemley's pastor, and pastor of the Buckeye Methodist church, of which the deceased was a member at the time of her death, preached the funeral sermon. The body was laid to rest by the side of the tomb of her husband, in Cedar Grove cemetery, Mt. Morris, her spirit having ere this ascended to God, who gave it. In the quiet of our home with the voices of our children ringing in our ears, and our mind throbbing with the happy memories of the past, we do not think of our departed one as dead, but that she "liveth and shall never die," liveth in a fuller and more beautiful sense than ever before. It would be unjust to say to the weeping ones, "weep not," but your tears should not only be those of sorrow, but those of joy as well.
Waynesburg Republican, April 4, 1912 (Greene County, Pennsylvania)

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