Obituaries
R

Mrs. E. G. [Emily BENEDICT] REYNOLDS

Prominent Woman Called By Death -- Mrs. E. G. REYNOLDS Passes Away After A Brief Illness -- She Spent an Active and Noble Life in Educational Work in the East

Mrs. E. G. REYNOLDS died at the Guild hospital early Monday morning after an acute sickness of a few weeks, but from deep-seated organic disease of many years’ standing.

During her residence of two years in Palo Alto she had won many friends. The family life was an example of a Christian home. Herself, her husband and her son, Leon B. REYNOLDS of Stanford University, were ideally one, and their work together seemed to those who knew them best almost a trio. Each seemed necessary to the other in a remarkable way. However useful their more active years in the eastern home, it is not too much to say that these last two years in beneficent influence upon a wide circle of very close friends has been of the largest and best quality. The breaking of the family by her death, and the sympathy for the husband and the son, will make her memory much more valuable, as it serves to underscore all that we saw in her of real grace and beauty of Christian womanhood.

Even her best friends knew little of her history, for she was not wont to speak of herself. She was not looking backward, but squarely forward. She read and heard the best, and watched, with bright interest, every significant event of current history. She went about doing good to those who most needed it, in complete self forgetfulness.

From careful inquiry we learn facts of her history which will be of great interest to her friends here who knew her just as she has shown her life to them, with little knowledge of her past. They thought her strangely beautiful in her life, but when we read its history and development it is no longer strange.

Miss Emily A. BENEDICT was born January 24, 1844, at Litchfield, Mich. She graduated from Hillsdale College in June, 1868, and received the degree of master of science in 1880.

In early life she united with the Congregational Church of Litchfield. For several years she was organist for the Sand Creek Methodist Church near Litchfield. She became a teacher in rural district schools and in graded schools of the county, and later was school inspector of her township for one term; was secretary of the Alumni Association of Hillsdale College for twenty-five years and has been a member of the woman’s commission of the college from its organization in 1892 to the present time. She raised several thousand dollars for its endowment and improvement.

She did not need to seek her appointments as a teacher. The schools sought her. She had the rare faculty of waking the mind, and very many of her pupils became prominent teachers. President Henry Churchill KING of Oberlin College was one of her pupils, and his brother, now of Pasadena, became a physician, as he testified, through the interest she aroused in him in the study of physiology. Her pupils never failed to give her studies the needed time. “We have to get our lessons in Miss Benedict’s classes.”

She married Mr. Elon G. REYNOLDS November 24, 1880, and was his partner in his many years of arduous work given to Hillsdale College as its treasurer. On account of her health the family spent six months in California in 1898. Besides her husband and her son she leaves three brothers and their families at the old home.

She died August 31, 1908, aged 64 years 7 months and 7 days, and will be buried at Pasadena in this state, where two sisters of her husband are already buried.

Her husband and her son will continue with us at Palo Alto, carrying out her plans as though she were with them. The large regard of her many friends will be intensified by the sympathy felt for them in their loss.

Submitter: Elaine Bennett-Sharp

David B. RICH

David B. RICH, a well known farmer of Cambria township, fell from a load of corn stalks last Friday, striking on his head and fracturing the skull. He died Sunday from the effects of his injuries, being unconcious from the time he was hurt.
Mr. RICH had been a resident of Cambria over half a century, and had lived on the farm where he died over forty years.

Submitter: Nancy Nally

Sarah TOMPKINS ROBARDS

Mrs. Addie TOMPKINS [of Litchfield] received word yesterday of the death of her sister-in-law, Mrs. John ROBARDS, of Battle Creek. Burial Saturday from this station to Mount Hope.
Mrs. ROBARDS will be remembered by the older residents of this place as the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mosely TOMPKINS, and moved from Litchfield about twenty years ago. Her death, which occurred yesterday, was on the fiftieth anniversary of her wedding.

Submitter: Phil Anderson

Benj. E. ROLPH

Benj. E. ROLPH is the first member of the Coldwater company (Co. A, 32d Mich.) to give his life for his country. He died at Fernandina, Fla., last Thursday of typhoid fever. The remains were brought home and buried with military honors.

Submitter: Nancy Nally

Clarrisa Jane RUOFF

Manitou Beach--Mrs. Clarrisa Jane Ruoff, 71, lived US-23, Woodstock township, died Wednesday in Addison hospital. Born Michigan 19 FEB 1880 to William and Angelina E. Pierce Cheascro. Survived by daughter Mrs. Nettie May Ruoff, sister Gertrude Winters living Ypsiltanti, three nieces and one nephew. Husband John died 10 March 1951. Funeral services to be held Charles e. Brown and Son funeral home, Addison. Burial in Woodstock cemetary.
Abstracted from the Hillsdale Daily News, 21 June 1951

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