The Southern Democrat Oneonta, AL 4-14-1904 A Correction Dear Editor of the Southern Democrat. I kindly ask you for a little space in your paper to correct and explain concerning an article written by Mr. H.C.A., concerning the death of my poor husband, Wiliam S. Hyatt. My husband was not a skeptic in religous matters but was a firm believer in the revealed religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. He told me of his change of heart which took place with him when he was about 12 years of age, and oftern felt it to be his dutry to go and join the church of his choice (the Baptist) and be baptized but had put it off from time to time and was sorry he has never done his duty in this important thing, but felt he was all right as to his future happiness beyond the grave, and the only thing he regreted now was having to leave me and his poor little children to the hardships of the world. I believe my poor husband has gone to rest and I hope to meet with him by and by, in the far off beautiful land of eternal peace and enjoyment. Louisa Hyatt Brooksville, Apr. 5

This is the letter that Louisa Hyatt was replying too in her letter of April 14, 1904. Thanks to Terry Jackson for finding this first letter about William S. Hyatt in the Southern Democrat, published March 17, 1904. A Model of Morality was William S. Hyatt The ubiquitous angel of Death has again visited our little town; this time bearing hence; the soul of our neighbor; and long time friend, William S. Hyatt. With philosophic patience and heroic fortitude, he grappled vainly for months with the grin gorgon, Consumption. The ministration of friends, the dynamics of modern medicine, the tender nursing of a loving wife, the restraining power in the imploring eyes of his tearful children - with these weapons he fought till yesterday afternoon at 4 O'clock when the light of his life went out in his thirty - sixth year. We long to keep him with us, to hear his kindly voice, to feel the warm thrill of his friendly hand-clasp, to bask in the gentle warmth of his smile, to move over in the noble light of his just and pure life, but, "We leaned on a hope that was all in vain. Till the fatal word at last, Told our stricken hearts he was out of pain. And his beautiful life had past." The Eternal had spoken and with his voice went the soul of our friend. In the wise economy of Nature it had to be for "Stars have their time to set, And leaves to wither at the North winds breath But thou hast all season for thine own, O, Death." He worshipped God in his life not in a church. He believed in and practiced the gospel of Good Deeds and made a Bible of his conscience. He was a Good Samaritan at heart, while his gentle, guidless life was sufficient, yet potent illustration of the Golden Rule. If to love Truth, Justice and Mercy; it to live without reproach - without making an enemy or committing a serious sin - if to lead a moral, upright life - a life filled with good deeds - if to embody and practice such virtues be christan, then was W. S. Hyatt a real disciple of the Great Teacher. The true standard of gauging a man's greatness is not by his creed or by his purse; but by his deeds, by what he has done, by his life as a whole. A hypocrite, notwith-standing his long prayers on Sunday, will inevitably, devour the widow's holdings and the orphans patrimony on Monday. Society holds the scales of judgment and weighs the Good with the Evil of a life. If the good predominates, then was the life of the dead a success. Weighed by these scales, measured by this standard, our humble friend was a grander success that all the blood-stained Potentates whose foul fame was built of widows' sighs and orphans' tears. Though his body is but dust, though his life was cast in a narrow sphere, yet his influence for good will follow him, in the lives of his friends, on to Eternity he as poor too, in the goods of this world; because he would not stoop to cheat or defraud - would not atain his soul by taking unfair advantage of this fellow-mans misfortune - yet he enjoyed a luxury which billionairs envy but cannot purchase, to wit, a conscience unpoluted and void of offence. This after all, is the grand dissideratum of life - the only anodyen that kills the sting of Death. Well can we say of him in the language of Shakesphere, "His life was gentle and the elements so met and mingled on him, that all the world might stand up and say, This was a man!" Let me digress a moment to lift a veil from a cenotaph of gold which this humble man built in the hearts of all who knew him. Yesterday the writer met an ignorant; wool-hat lad of the mill-going age- a boy in no wise related to the dead man who had been reared four miles away - and, after inquiring as to the condition of the sick man & etc, he connented heskily, " He shore is a good feller - is that man Hyatt!" To politics our friend was a Democrat, not from prejudice but from principle. He consider the study of public questions as the moral duty of every man capable of reasoning and judging. He was a natural reasoner and though he had no diploma, he was truly an educated man - his mind being ever open to truth and his heart to sympathy. The dominant element of his character - the veritable keynote of his life - was his scrupulous honesty. It is known that once in early married life, he denyed himself some things which we not consider as "necessaries" in order that he might the sooner cancel a doctor's bill. Of but few men can it be said as truthfully as we can say of him, Wherever he was known, his word was as valid as his note. He did, indeed, live without guile and died without remorse. He has gone to that Undiscovered Country, and if Immortality is not a sweet, but delusive dream our friend is now moving in a broader, happier shere of life; but this inate thirst for Happiness, this universal struggle for Perfection, this mysterious psychie instinct to worship the Great All-Father, if these primordal passoins and principles have no correlative beyond the tomb's pale portals our friend is still inflitely more blessed in the unconscious repose of Death, than he could possibly be in the tumults of Life. If his slumber be eternal, if he wakens never he cannot miss the loved of his friends, of his wife , of the children. The painful burdens of life--its troubles and trials, its sorrows and storms - the bitter strife and struggle - these demons can tortute him no longer. To the wise man, to the true philospoher, Death is a generous friend - an angle" with healing in her wings." When weary of life's thorny path, when haunted by the spectroe of disappointed hopes, when goaded by the prods of unrealisacle ambitions, when out ranged, betrayed, and "batened with many stripes" by his fellow travelers, how sweet to relinquish it all and, like the true child, "wrap the drapiery of the couch about him and lie down to pleasent dreams" H.C.A. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Jackson" <jacksont@otelco.net> To: <ALBLOUNT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 2:34 PM Subject: [ALBLOUNT-L] William S. Hyatt > The Southern Democrat > Oneonta, AL > 4-14-1904 > A Correction > > Dear Editor of the Southern Democrat. > > I kindly ask you for a little space in your paper to correct and explain > concerning an article written by Mr. H.C.A., concerning the death of my > poor husband, Wiliam S. Hyatt. My husband was not a skeptic in religous > matters but was a firm believer in the revealed religion of the Lord Jesus > Christ. He told me of his change of heart which took place with him when > he was about 12 years of age, and oftern felt it to be his dutry to go and > join the church of his choice (the Baptist) and be baptized but had put it > off from time to time and was sorry he has never done his duty in this > important thing, but felt he was all right as to his future happiness > beyond the grave, and the only thing he regreted now was having to leave > me and his poor little children to the hardships of the world. I believe > my poor husband has gone to rest and I hope to meet with him by and by, in > the far off beautiful land of eternal peace and enjoyment. > > Louisa Hyatt > Brooksville, Apr. 5 > > > > > ==== ALBLOUNT Mailing List ==== > List Website - http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/usa/AL/blount.html > Genealogy Links - http://www2.netdoor.com/~cch/GEN-links.htm > > ============================== > Census images 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871, plus so much more. > Ancestry.com's United Kingdom & Ireland Collection. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13968/rd.ashx > >