This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Brainard, Lawson, Downs Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/5d.2ADI/3534 Message Board Post: Payette Enterprise Payette, Idaho Thursday, September 19, 1929 FORMER PAYETTE GIRL DIES IN ARIZ. LAWSON RITES SET ON FRIDAY Bird Lover and Expert Will Be Buried From Her Oracle Home Oracle, Ariz. -- Funeral services for Mrs. Bessie Brainard Lawson, who died here Monday after an illness of 10 years, will be held Friday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock, Mrs. Lawson's daughter, Dorothy Julia, is enroute home and will arrive today. Mrs. Lawson was born in Whatcheer, Ia., January 13, 1883. When she was about 15 her family moved to Payette, Ida. After graduating from Westminister College in Salt Lake City, she returned home, where she took an active interest in church work. She had a class of about 15 girls in the Presbyterian Sunday school. With these girls she has kept in close touch all these years that she has lived in Oracle. Came to Tucson In the fall of 1911 she came to Tucson because of ill health. That winter she studied at the University of Arizona. Mrs. Lawson came to Oracle in May, 1912. During that summer she met J. W. Lawson, and they were married in Los Angeles on June 14, 1913. Their only child, Dorothy, was born, November 8, 1914. During the war Mrs. Lawson took an active part in Red Cross work. She had always been interested in the church work of the community. After a visit, in 1919, to her old home in Idaho, on which she was accompanied by her little daughter, she broke down in health and has been an invalid ever since. Although confined to her home, she still took an active interest in affairs. For some years an Easter service was held on her lawn for the community. As long as she was able she occasionally gave little parties in her home. Studies Birds She took up bird study and banded birds for the biological department of the government. She became a member of the Western Bird Banding association of Pasadena. In the annual campaign of 1922 for more bird sanctuaries, she won a gold medal. Mrs. Lawson was a member of the P. E. O. society and the W. C. T. U. Her remarkable courage is clinging to life in spite of the great suffering and her desire to be of service to the community in every way possible in one so handicapped by illness, have made her as outstanding figure among her friends. Mrs. Lawson is survived by her husband, John W. Lawson, her daughter, Dorothy Julia and her mother, Julia D. Brainard, and her three brothers, C. D. Brainard, Paul P. Brainard and Morris W. Brainard. Miss Dorothy Lawson, who is due home today, has been visiting her mother's old home with Miss Beryl Downs, a teacher of Tuscon, who was a member of Mrs. Lawson's Sunday school class at Payette. -- Tucson paper. Funeral services were held at the Trinity Presbyterian church in Tucson, Dr. Wallam officiating.