Sunday in Mt. Pleasant was given over to the obsequies for the city’s dead. The weather was chilly, the skies forbidding, the sun, when it came out at intervals, unfriendly. The first of the falling leaves littered the lawns or swirled about in the dust eddies, and the desolateness that pervaded two homes of this town seemed to be reflected in the sombre colorings of outdoors. For with these first days of fall, with the first of the falling leaves, the changing from the greens and the brightness to the greys and the sadness, Death, that unwelcome guest for whom we are always looking but never expecting, came to two of our homes, and Sunday there were laid away in Forest Home Cemetery a young woman, who had all of life before her, and a man in the autumn of life, the early autumn.

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The funeral of Mrs. Laura Kauffman-McCoy was private, only the family, relatives and near friends attending the last sad rites over the remains of the beautiful young woman, whose life was closed under circumstances so pathetic. The services were conducted by Rev. W.P. Nicholas, her pastor, and after the last word had been said and the last look taken of the familiar features of her, who in life was so well known in every Mt. Pleasant home, she was taken by her father and her relatives and friends to Forest Home Cemetery, and laid away for an eternal rest beside her mother and her two brothers.

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The funeral of Mr. John Wallbank was held in the afternoon from his beautiful home on North Main Street. The funeral was public and the great outpouring of the men and women of Mt. Pleasant and of the county testified to the place he occupied in the material affairs of the community. They came from almost every town in the county, old friends of the family, old business and political acquaintances of the deceased, those who sympathized with the stricken family, those who desired to show their respects to those in sorrow. The funeral was conducted with simple and dignified ceremonies. As the people arrived, they were met at the door and at once directed to the parlor, where lay the body in its casket, for a last look at Mr. Wallbank. This having been taken; seats were found for all who could possibly be accommodated in the spacious rooms.

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The casket was piled high with floral designs from those who in this appropriate way sought to manifest their sympathy for the family. Those who looked upon the face of Mr. Wallbank could not realize that the familiar features had been smoothed into calm repose by the hand of Death. Dressed in becoming black, his handsome iron-grey hair smoothed away over the forehead, his features full and regular, he looked so natural there was nothing to suggest the great change unless it were the pallor of the countenance and the sombre surroundings of the funeral arrangements. And thus, dressed for his last earthly journey, unconscious of the sadness that his leave-taking was causing, he tarried for a little while in his old home while friends and neighbors came to say farewell and bid him God speed on that mysterious journey, from which no man returneth.

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The music was very sweet and appropriate and was rendered by a quartette consisting of Mrs. H.E. Snider, Mrs. James T. Whiting, Mr. Orrin Drummond, and Mr. R.A. Budde. A beautiful solo was also sung by Miss Grace Helphrey. The services were conducted by Rev. W.P. Nicholas, and pastor of the Presbyterian church, the pastor of the deceased, who spoke with great feeling and comfort to the family. The service was short, the singing, the prayer, the comforting remarks, the silence broken by the bearing away of the casket, the moving feet and the sobs of the heartbroken, and then the sympathizing people clustered about the house while the long procession was formed, which was to escort to its last resting place out in the autumn tinted Forest Home all that was mortal of one of our best known and highly respected fellow citizens. And with a prayer and a song they laid him away on a sunny slope and came back leaving him asleep in that sacred community.

(“Mt. Pleasant News”, Monday, September 12, 1904)

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Resource provided by Henry County Heritage Trust, Mount Pleasant, Iowa; transcription done by Liam Christensen, University of Northern Iowa Public History Field Experience Class, Spring 2025.

Contributed to Henry County IAGenWeb, March 2025.