Obituary — Mrs. Mary Gassett, 1884, Iowa

Leon, Iowa area, 1884

Died, at her home in Eden township, July 17, 1884, at 5:30 A. M., after a lingering illness, Mrs. Mary Gassett.

Her maiden name was Mary Hodgman and was born Nov. 19, 1823, in Townsend, Middlesex Co., Mass., and was married to G. W. Gassett Jan. 7, 1847. She became a Christian at the age of 14, and united with the Baptist Church at Nashua, New Hampshire, which faith she maintained until the day of her death. Her first home after marriage was at Monticello, Jones Co., Iowa. In the spring of 1853, she, with her husband and two children, removed to Eden township, Decatur county, Iowa, where she resided until death called her to a home up higher. Death, however, for her had no terrors.

Mrs. Gassett was cherished by a large and devoted circle of friends and fondly beloved in all the relations of life. She was the mother of seven children — three sons and four daughters — all of whom, with the husband, except one son, were permitted to follow her to her last resting place in the beautiful cemetery in Leon, where she was lovingly laid by the side of her beloved son.

She was a sufferer for many weary months, but bore it all with rare fortitude and Christian resignation that she might ease, if possible, the heart pangs of her family, whom she had reared with such tender solicitude, and who in return did everything within human power to sooth the pain of a suffering mother. When she realized that she was near the "dark river" she kissed and bade the loved ones good bye tenderly, and said I am ready to go.

Thus passed away Mrs. Mary Gassett, who adorned every relation of life, but devoted her greatest energies and fondest affections to the holy duties of a Christian wife and mother, and has erected in the hearts of her household a throne of love that will ever remain consecrated to her memory, yielding to their broken affections a fragrance redolent of Heaven, whither she has gone.

"Thus star by star declines,
Till all are passed away.
As morning higher and higher shines
To pure and perfect day;
Nor sink those stars in empty night,
But hide themselves in Heaven's own light."

D.

Sleeping With Your Feet Toward the Equator

1884

Dr. J. S. Wright, professor of operative and clinical surgery in the Long Island college hospital, does not think that health is promoted by sleeping with the feet to the equator. He says the subject has never been treated in medical lectures, and he never heard it discussed in any scientific body. He never knew of any hospital where attention was paid to the theory in the arrangement of the beds.

Dr. McCorkle, professor of matoria medica and therapeutics, also of the Long Island college hospital, says he believes the theory of placing the bed north and south is more believed in by the laity than by the medical profession; that he has never tried it himself nor seen it tried by anybody.

Dr. Merzbach, of the same hospital, does not believe in the theory. A venerable physician of New York says: "My opinion is that it is a piece of nonsense worthy of some superstitious old lady. I would rank it with fortune-telling and table-tipping. Some people believe in them. Some people derive benefit from having charms about their persons, and there is no particular harm in their wearing charms if they see fit. I have heard of a man who carried a horse chestnut in his pocket as a preventive of hemorrhoids. He declared that whenever he lost his horse chestnut the disease returned. Yet I never heard of any physician prescribing that mode of cure for hemorrhoids.

"There is no end to the cures that may be worked by imagination. Bulwer hits off this thought capitally when he makes Pisistratus Caxton say: 'A saffron bag worn at the pit of the stomach is a great cure. Oh, foolish boy, it is not the saffron bag, but the belief in the saffron bag. Apply belief to the center of the nerves and all will be well.' So I say that this bed theory is a sort of saffron bag. While I am of the opinion that it is nonsense, and old women's cackle and empiric drivel, I have no doubt people may honestly believe in it and bear testimony to its worth. It is easily tried; it does not cost any money. It will do about as much good as a dose of sweetened water, such as a doctor often gives to people who think they must have something when they don't need anything."

The above opinions will no doubt prove of interest to those people whose rooms are so arranged that they cannot sleep with their heads to the north.

—The Atchison Globe, Atchison, Kansas, Aug. 3, 1884.

In an African Market Place

1884

An African market, with so many commodities to sell and so many eager sellers and loungers, is a most animated scene. The din of voices may be heard afar off, and when you enter the great open square, where, under the shade of great trees, perhaps a thousand people are disposed in little chaffering groups around their heaps of wares, it is worse than the parrot-house at the Zoological Gardens.

The women are the keenest traders; they haggle and scream and expostulate, and chuckle aside over their bargains, while the hulking men lounge about in good-humored uselessness, or squat in rows stolidly smoking. Although the strife of tongue is great, few real quarrels occur. There is in most cases a chief of the market, perhaps an old Fetish man, who regulates all disputes, and who so heavily fines both litigants that all are chary of provoking his arbitration.

This babel lasts but one day, and then for the rest of the "week" or "fortnight" the market place is void and desolate; only the old wicker baskets, banana skins, corn-shucks, feathers and egg-shells remain to witness to the great assemblage which has taken place. Of such a kind is the great market near Isaugila, and there are similar gatherings at Manyanga, Lutete, and in proximity to most of Mr. Stanley's stations. — Johnson's Congo River.


A Zulu belle is like the proverbial prophet. She has not much on'er in her own country. — Chicago Sun.


1926:

If the amount of tea drunk in England in one year were held in one teapot it would require a vessel as high as the cross on St. Paul's Cathedral, and in proportions of a teapot that high. Four trains could race abreast through its spout.

Curl Your Mustache

1884

At a late hour last evening a young man left a chair in a fashionable uptown barber shop with a handkerchief to his mouth.

"Cut him?" asked the next customer.

"No. He's got his mustache in curlers."

"Eh?"

The barber produced two bits of rubber tubing an inch long and quarter of an inch thick. In one end was a hole with a small rubber ring through it. In the other end was a slit.

"We roll the wet mustache around this tube, and, after making one turn around all with the ring, slip it into the slit. That holds the hair in the curled position until morning, when he takes off the curler. The hair will stay in shape for a day or two. If applied often enough it makes a permanent curl. We charge 25 cents for a pair of curlers and 6 cents for applying them — latest thing for mustaches. — The New York Sun.

An Anemone's Live Morsel

1884

In one of the apartments of the San Francisco Aquarium, the interior being plainly visible through the plate-glass front, are a number of sea anemones, or sea sunflowers, about three or four inches in diameter, clinging to pieces of rock, and among them several young halibut.

Near the front, in plain view of the writer the other day, was a halibut about five or six inches long in a natural horizontal position, with his nose just touching the center or mouth of the anemone, apparently feeding. Looking closer it was observed that the anemone was in motion, and in a short space it was doubtful whether the fish or anemone was the eater. Presently the ineffectual struggle of the fish to loose himself denoted his capture. It seemed that the finny marauder had pushed his nose against the innocent-looking mouth of the plant in pursuit of food and was caught. The face of the anemone, which had previously been flat and circular, like its namesake, the sunflower, became concave and closed up and around the head of the fish, elongating itself for the purpose, and in about five minutes the head was covered entirely to the gills. While closing the plant raised the fish to a vertical position. Soon the head was covered to the gills; its respiration almost stopped.

At this juncture the writer's pity for the fish prevailed over his curiosity and he released the prisoner. In two minutes more it would have passed, or at least so much of it as would have answered the purpose, into food for the anemone. — The San Francisco Call.