OBIT # 5176 - EASTERN CHRONICLE - 22 JANUARY 1948: Seven years before Confereration a child was born at The Ponds, Merigomish, ELIZABETH (Eliza) JANE to DAVID and SUSAN MANNING THOMPSON, on April 26th, 1859. Eighty-nine years and nine months later there was a funeral service in First Presbyterian Church, New Glasgow, January 17th, 1948. The lifetime of the child had spanned nine tenths of a century. Not again are Pictonians likely to know a woman of the mould of Miss Elizabeth Thompson. By conservative estimate, three thousand children passed through her school room, a quarter as many more through Sunday School and Bible Class. What the later generation cannot comprehend is the unbending spirit that motivated that rugged frame, the Christian character underlying the stern manner, the charity beneath buisness shrewdness. The stuff of heroines was incorporated in Elizabeth Thompson's makeup, and if much of her work be interred with her remains, if the secular trend of the day has little time to perpetuate the memory of its illustrious dead, the strict code that was hers would not be altered a hair's breadth, were time to turn back. Seven years after birth, she came to New Glasgow, a tiny town then of wooden walks and mudpaths. Four days past her sixteenth birthday, in 1875, she began teaching at White Hill, County of Pictou, then Garden of Eden, Glenelg, Westville, and a few years in Marian, Mass., USA. She was a teacher of ten years experience when she returned to New Glasgow in 1885(or was it 1884, the record is vague). She detrained in New Glasgow on a Saturday night. Monday morning she was in the classroom, in the old West Side School.(out of use since 1914. demolished during the Second War). On a day in late June, 1929, she put aside chalk and pointer forever, walked from the White School to her nearby home. Eighteen and one half years she lived in retirement. As a stern disciplinarian as ever taught children the difference from right and wrong, Miss Thompson's record was unparallelled in her profession locally. Three generations were exposed to her teaching. Her interests were dual- the Church and her daily work. In First Presbyterian Church, New Glasgow, by common consent it is conceded that no woman toiled harder in its cause, nor cared less for recognition. On the Communicants Roll of James Church, New Glasgow, dated 17th September, 1886, the one hundredth anniversary of the Congregation, her name appears. It appears again on the roll fifty years later, 1936. When a child, the second pastor of James Church, Rev .David Roy, was her minister. As a maid she was received into the fold by Rev. Edward A.MacCurdy. In all life, every Sabbath found her in the pew; altogether eight ministers served in the Congregation in her time, Roy, MacCurdy, Rev.James Carruthers,D.D., Rev.G.E.Forbes, Rev.E.H.Ramsay, Rev.J. A. Sutherland, Rev. N.D. Kennedy and the present incumbant, Rev.W.L.McLellan. At the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of first Presbyterian Church in September, 1936, Miss Thompson was present , as she had been at the century anniversary. A plaque on the wall of the Church, on memory of Rev.Dr.Carruthers, founder of Aberdeen Hospital, was unveiled by her. In the schools she served under five Principals, the late Frank Simpson, David Sloane, the late John T. MacLeod, the late Douglas Highett and the late C.V. Spencer. As an only child, in comparative early life Miss Thompson was called upon to support her ageing parents. Career women of the eighties and nineties were unknown- to her by right belong the acclaim of the first of her sex in the County of Pictou to strike out in the buisness world and achieve unique success. Without brothers to guide her in buisness investment, no services as exist today, the inborn ability that hers kept both ends meeting from the miserable pittance paid to teachers. Thrifty frugality, netted a dollar, and time built up the savings. Insurance sixty years back was an unknown quantity, an investment for daring souls. No one can say for certainty if Miss Thompson was the first woman in Pictou County to recognize the worth of insurance. If not the first, they were few who so invested before her. Before World War One began. Miss Thompson was a leading figure in real estate in New Glasgow. The start came from an endowment policy which had matured in the early days of the century, for those far off days a virtually unknown transaction for a woman. To the Eastern Chronicle, a one time pupil of Miss Thompson's spoke an impromptu tribute- "That woman was born too early or too late. Imagine in these times a woman of the character and buisness sense of Miss Thompson's. There's many a leader in buisness that would give worlds to have her in his employ." No relatives nearer than first cousins survive Miss Thompson. Among themare Mrs. ALEX DUNBAR, Mulgrave; Mrs. J. MONGOMERY KERR, St.Anne de Bellevue, P.Q.; Mrs. HARRIET SHELDON, Hatrford, Conn., who every summer visited Miss Thompson; J. R. STEWART, New Glasgow; and HUGH GRANT, Thorburn. Cousins of the next generation furthur removed, include the family of the late JOHN G. THOMPSON, Mrs. WILLIAM (SADIE) MUNROE, New Glasgow, FENWICK THOMPSON and SCOTT PATTON. Her pastor, Rev. W. L. MacLellan conducted the service in the First Presbyterian Church on Saturday last. Interment was at Riverside cemetery.