----- Original Message ----- From: James Laird To: None Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 11:24 AM Subject: In Memoriam: Charles Layfayette and Ann Muirhead THOMPSON.. The Perry Mirror Thursday February 3, 1910 In Memoriam. Charles Lafayette and Ann Muirhead Thompson. Blessed beyond the measure of most mortal men and women, blessed so abundantly during the full measure of three quarters of a century, and in Mr. THOMPSON's case, two and one-half years more. Fortunate in this, that he as born and grew up in the Old Bay State, where the Websters, the Wilsons and the Hoars inspired the boys and young men with a sturdy manhood, and she in the Pine Tree State, to which Blains lent a luster that lighted the pathway of every school boy and girl that fitted them for a worthy Kansas citizenship, which they so nobly fulfilled. But blessed more that all else, in the enjoyment of fifty-five years of companionship as man and wife. The silent, invisible, intangible, incomputable things of this life are, after all, the only things that are worth counting. Love, patience, faith, truthfulness, and a knowledge of these that comes to us through the long years, if these years be extended over half a century of time, it is more, infinitely more, than all else this world can give. Fifty years of married life. How their lives must have grown into one being, almost one personality. Cross purposes could not be with such lives. The hurt comes to some of us when we see the world drunk with gladness and happiness and love; not stopping to heed us, not seeming to appreciate their own blessings, nor to know that we have been robbed of this world's choicest treasures. Yes, they lived as man and wife fifty-five years; a great while, isn't it? And then, in the profligacy, as it seemed He did not even stop to retrim His lamp. No sorrow, no regrets, no loneliness, only a continuance, with hardly a pause, of that belssed companionship. There was twenty-nine and one-half hours between the time of her transition and his. His last illness was of nine months' duration. He had hardly been sick before that time. Mrs. THOMPSON was sick only forty-eight hours. His oft expressed wish, that she might go first, as he thought he could stand the parting better, was realized. To those who are nearest to them, it should be a consoling thought, that they died thus. Fifty-three years in Kansas, in the days when manhood and womanhood was at its best, and they were the stalwarts and rugged ones, when all were striving grandly. The first seven of those years were spent in Douglas county. His occupation during these years was farming; incidentally he carried the mail from Lawrence to Sumner, on the Missouri river, a distance of fifty miles through the then exclusively Indian settlements, the distance being covered in one day on horse-back. Think of it. For diversion he fought the border ruffians with Jim Lane, hauled freight over the Kan Prairies to many points from the Missouri river, and went to the gold diggings at Pike's Peak; and all this time the wife bravely kept the home. For forty-six years Jefferson county knew him, to always trust and honor him as an honest man, an enterprising citizen, and many of us who knew him best as a faithful friend. All who knew the Indian mills on the Delaware knew all about him. He and the mill are both gone, and we all feel lonely when we pass that way. On SUnday, the 23rd, we buried them both in one grave in the beautiful cemetery at Lawrence, where they were three little graves. One child was buried long ago in Massachusetts. The vacant places left by the loss of these little ones was in part d by an adopted daughter, Anna M. ESSON. She, too, was buried only six years after her marriage to William BINNS. Their daughter, Maud, her husband, E.T. ARNOLD, and little daughter, of Perry, and their daughter, Una B., her husband, A.A. LEWIS, and two little daughters, of Wichita, have our earnest sympathy. J.F. TRUE.