Fordyce Obituary

Fernando Wood Obituary
1902

Died at the home of his mother, Mrs. Maria Wood, four miles west of Rogersville, on the 5th inst., Fernando Wood, aged 41 years, 7 months and 29 days. Bright's disease was the cause of his death. He was born at Holbrook on August 6, 1860, and was a son of Jesse, now deceased, and Maria (nee Fordyce) Wood, and was the fourth in a family of eight children. He left this section when quite young and after spending a few years in West Virginia went west and for the past twelve years has been a resident of South Dakota, returning from there less than a year ago. He was unmarried. The deceased was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word - honest, true-hearted, modest and unassuming, and was beloved by all who knew him. He lived an exemplary life, worthy of the highest emulation, and though we shall meet him on earth no more, he will ever live in our hearts and we hope some day to greet him in that heavenly home above. Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at the Willow Grove Christian church, conducted by Rev. W. F. McKain, after which his remains were laid to rest in the old Fordyce cemetery.
Waynesburg Republican, April 10, 1902 (Greene County, Pennsylvania)

Composed in loving memory of Fernando Wood who departed this life in the home of his mother, in Center township, Greene county, Pa., April 5th, 1902, by Spencer S. Fordyce
Dear brother of our childhood days,
So winning in thy smiles and way;
Thy deeds of love, thy word of cheer,
That makes thee to our hearts so dear,
Proclaimed with no uncertain sound
Thy character, to all around.
Born mid the Pennsylvania hills
Whose gushing springs and babling rills
Furnish the life to vine clad bowers,
Refresh the foliage, grass and flowers,
Orchard and forest trees so great
That beautifies the Keystone state.
At Holbrook, on old Tenmiles stream,
Whose water in the sunlight gleam;
Reflecting willow tree and birch,
Reflecting shadows of the church,
Whose spires are pointing to the sky
To indicate thy home on high.
There on the hill side thou has played
And rambled in the forest shade
With brothers, sisters, at thy side.
And scan'd the hilltops far and wide,
United in our childish glee
And in affection us and thee.
And when by duty called away
To make a temporary stay
In country of Hanuawa great
Within our sister mountain state,
Thine eyes behld extending wide
The Forests of Virginia pride.
Thy love of beauty hath been blest
In roaming o'er the mighty West,
Across the Mississippi wide
With golden crops on either side,
Her cities with their lofty domes
Prairie flowers and happy homes.
To the Dakotas next he goes
Near where the laughing waters flows,
Where forests vast of strange sweet flowers
Breathe contentment to lonely hours,
As travler now he ceased to roam
And made this far off land his home.
And for eight years with might and main
He broke the sod and sowed the grain,
Working by hand and by machine
The treasures of the earth to glean,
Till warned by illness and by pain
He sought his native land again.
But e'er a year, behold a cloud
Behold a coffin and a shroud,
The weary moan, the dying gasp
As death was tightening his grasp,
A mound, with him we loved, below
All shrouded by the stainless snow.
Fit emblem of a stainless life
Untarnished by ill will or strife,
Expressing a willingness to go
He closed his eyes to all below,
Trusting to God the only wise
To open them in Paradise.
Where all our loved and lost we'll meet
Where all the pure in heart shall greet,
Shall meet to separate no more
Upon that happy golden shore,
In that salubrious sinny clime
That changes not with changing time.
Newspaper obituary, date and source unknown (Greene County, Pennsylvania)

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