The following are selected articles from a Newspaper titled, "The Higbee News" which was issued out of the town of Higbee, in Randolph County, Missouri from the years 1888 through 1953. The editors and owners were a wonderful man by the name of W. H. Welch and his son H. Scott Welch. This paper covered the Higbee area and also a great deal of the northeastern part of Howard county. It is because of my tremendous admiration for this father and son, that I am transcribing this paper and putting it in a more readable format, so that this work may again be brought to light, to entertain, and teach a whole new generation of the descendants of the inhabitants and neighbors of a little town called "Higbee." The copyright notice at the end of this transcript is there for the sole purpose of keeping this work free to the public, and to ensure that it is not harvested by a fee-based corporate genealogy site, or published in any format for profit. If you decide to use the information from this transcription, PLEASE LIST ME AS THE SOURCE, rather than the paper. My transcription is another generation removed from the microfilm, and would thus be a third generation copy of the original paper. I wouldn't want my own possible errors in transcription, blamed on the editors of the paper. For proper documentation, a researcher should obtain a photocopy of the microfilm for their own permanent records, and use my transcript as a guide or index. The microfilm is available for interlibrary loan through the State Historical Society of Missouri, and a copy is also on file at the Moberly Public Library, generously donated by the Higbee Historical Society. When the Higbee Historical Society disbanded, their material was donated to the Randolph County Historical Society and is still available there. Friday, 27 Nov. 1925, Vol 39 No. 31, pg. 1, col. 1,2,3&4--BENJ. ROBSON LAID TO REST--Funeral Services Held Saturday and Interment Made in Higbee Cemetery.--Benjamin Robson, brief mention of whose death was made in our last issue, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Edwin Rees, in Springfield, Ill., at 2:30 a.m., Wednesday, November 18, 1925, following an illness of a year or more, and which had confined him to his home most of the time, and to his bed for many weeks, the cause of death being general debility more than anything else. Deceased was born in Weardale, Durham county, England, on December 7, 1852. He was married to Sarah Jane Watson of the same place on January 23, 1877, and came to the United States on May, 1879, locating in Carbon, Iowa, where he lived until 1881, when he moved to Huntsville, and from the latter place to Higbee in 1895. They were the parents of three children, one of whom, a son, died in infancy. The surviving children are Mrs. Edwin Rees, and Mrs. Frank Goin, both of Springfield, Ill. Mrs. Robson dying suddenly on December 24, 1912, he remained here with his daughter, Mrs. Goin, until her removal to Springfield in 1917, when he accompanied her, and had since made his home with Mr. and Mrs. Rees. But he never forgot old Higbee or her people, and came back at every opportunity, his last visit being four years ago. While he was known to a few of his older acquaintances as "Ben," he was what he tried to be, and what he was, to all-- "Brother" Robson. Uniting with the Methodist church in England when quite a young man, he became a lay preacher, and the good he did as such, to say nothing of the good he did unconsciously by his quiet, unassuming and truly christian everyday life, is incalculable, and will live on and have its influence on generations yet unborn. On many occasions during his long residence among us, he had filled the pulpit of the "little old church on the hill," as he lovingly called the Methodist church, when the regular pastor was sick or absent or when there were no services at any of the other churches. He had also watched and prayed at the bedside of many who were about to pass out into the great unknown, and was made as happy as a person can be on earth by hearing them say that they had found peace and were not afraid to go. It was his lot, too, to preach many funerals, and with his implicit trust in God, and his wonderfully soft and gentle voice and manner, he always brought cheer and comfort to broken hearts. One such service in particular do we recall--the greatest we ever listened to, and couched in words that a little child could understand--that of Mrs. John Rankin, and which will never likely be forgotten by any who heard it. The death of his beloved wife, occurring as it did, and when he was at his beloved church, and where she was shortly expected, helping prepare the Christmas tree, was a blow from which he never recovered, and he was never again the same person, going into a gradual decline from that sad day. Never for an instant did he falter in his Christian endeavor, but clung all the closer, if possible, to the old Book, as firmly convinced that he would meet her in a brighter and better world as he was that he must die. Though never afraid of death, and ready to answer the Death Angel's summons at any moment, he never spoke of his approaching dissolution, although he knew it was close at hand, at any time during his illness, no doubt to spare the feelings of his loved ones, but hinted at it by the remark, "How I would love to see that little grave in Old Higbee! But I'll see it, I'll see it," and again, "I have enjoyed my home here with you." A few days preceding his death his throat was partially paralyzed, making speech difficult and this, with his enfeebled voice, which was but the shadow of a whisper, made it impossible for those watching the feeble flame of life flicker out to catch his last message to friends in old Higbee , other than for them to tell the folks not to "let the little church on the hill die," and to "tell the Welches____" but the message was never finished. We had known Bro. Robson intimately as friend and neighbor since the day he came to Higbee, and to have been remembered by him in such an hour calls up feelings we have no words to describe. The last words he spoke before passing into the Better Land--and which came, it seemed to the anxious watchers, minutes apart, were, "Take that that relieveth all men. For behold I am with you always," and which were the basis of the short funeral discourse of the Rev. Brower. The body, accompanied by the family and relatives, arrived Friday morning and was taken to the home of his old neighbor and friend, Lon Coleman, and funeral services were held the next day at 2:30 by the Rev. Brower. He based his sermon on the above last utterance of the deceased, and partly from a sermon which was found in Bro. Robson's diary, but which was not original, it is thought, as a name, presumably that of the author, was found at the top of the first page. The writing was not old and had been copied slowly and laboriously, as the failing and faltering hand testified, on each succeeding page, and that the awful Christmas eve of 1912 was his constant thought is proven by the subject of the sermon, "Death, the Ceaseless Tragedy of Life." The opening paragraphs of the sermon told of a man losing his companion by death despite all that love and care could do. "It never occurred that she would die. He had held on with love's unyielding hold till there was nothing left to hold to. She was gone! Only the breathless bit of precious form remained. They two had been as closely knit together as two ever were or could be. but she was gone, quite gone, beyond his recall. He was outwardly very quiet, attending to the things that needed doing. But within he gasped. He could not seem to get his breath. All life had changed. The world was a different place. She was gone!" Leaving his desolate home, the man takes his Bible and goes to a quiet wood, when the sermon continues: "Now he sat still. The question asking itself of him, "Where is she?" the precious bit of tentemental clay was there, tenderly cared for, but where was she? Not there! Somewhere--where? That little limp covered Book seemed to open itself at John's (dear old John!) story of Jesus, and it seemed to stay as readily at that unforgettable Bethany page, the eleventh chapter. A new soft light shined in upon and then out of the old words, and a quiet peace, sweeter, more real, came steadily in. Yes, a new peace in the overwhelming daze that well nigh swamped him. But a great lone feeling gripped at his heart, mingling with the peace even while yielding to it. He could not remember how long he sat. Then he climbed slowly down the hill back along the street they had so often walked together hand in hand. But he went to the old home and the old round, but a changed life. It would never be the same again. It couldn't be. He had entered into the sorest experience of his life and he never forgot it in this life." The part of the sermon quoted below was read from the diary by Rev. Brower and was frequently referred to in his discourse: "The lights are all out in the mansions of clay, The curtains are drawn, the dweller's away; She silently slipped o'er the threshold by night, To make her abode in the city of light." "Death, how commonplace. Yes, commonplace in its frequency--monotonously commonplace. No, no, quite wrong. Never commonplace. Sacred, hallowed, a thing quite by itself in its loneliness and grief, though it happens every hour of the day to some son and daughter of man. "For death is the commonest thing in life. Its shadow never leaves. The postman puts the black-bordered reminder into your hand. The caller's card has the same touch. The garb you passed just now in the street, the half-mast flag, the tolling of the church bell, the low requiem, breathing out of church windows, the slow-moving procession--these are daily things. Commercialism halts the telegraph system of a nation a scant five minutes to tell out honor to some one gone, and then picks up its mad rush again. The trolleys and trains at a brief standstill; the white monuments draped in black, the public buildings covered with clothes of grief--"These tell the same ceaseless story. "If you open the Old book, it's barely open before you hear Eve's sobs over her boy lying so still. Almost at once you are in the striking fifth of Genesis with its requiem of sorrow, chanting monotonously, "and he died." The dispairing cries of a race going down under the great wash of inundating waters and the wail of broken hearts in Egyptian homes over the first-born gone, catch your sensitive ear. If you hurry on through the pages to get away, it is but to hear the dear old singer of Israel sobbing his heart quite out over his handsome but self-willed boy, and the newer leaves open with the cries of the broken hearted mothers of little Bethlehem among the hills. The symphony of sorrow never seems to get to its end. "Death is always a tragedy to somebody. Life is tragic. Death seems but the dark double knotting on the end of the thread of life. Never a day passes without death breaking some heart. Never a corner safe from the dripping rain of death's tears sometime. "Homes are broken up, the hearthstone is left to the white ashes. The dear loved family circle is broken and scattered beyond reunion here. Habits of a life-time are snapped in their toughest threads. Plans and ambitions lie scattered to the mocking winds. And memory trails its minor chords along every street and hallway of the bruised heart and rudely disturbed life. The world's worst war has added a terrific emphasis to all this. It was bad enough before, it is running riot now--seemingly an unchecked, unrestrained, ghoulish riot--despite statesmen and lawmakers, armistices, treaties and all the rest. "But there is something yet more tragic than these things. There is the terrific uncertainty in most minds and hearts growing out of these things. Uncertainty, where the heart's involved, where love's on the tender-hooks--that becomes the worst pain that can come. The questions come trooping in insistently, incorrigibly, by day and by night, demanding, asking space, and giving no breathing room in between, "Is he still alive? Is there a spirit world? Is there really, something behind this life where he has gone? How are things with him now?" "All over the world, Orient and Occident, below the equator and above it, in savage kraal and cultured home, among so-called heathen peoples and in the shining of the floodlights of truth, the cry breaks out of human hearts, "Where has he gone?" "Sorrow makes all the race akin. Differences, hatreds, prejudices, are submerged in the hour of common sorrow. Yet there's clear light. There's an answer to these questions. There is certainly in the place of uncertainty. There is positive, dependable information at hand. It's enough to give the golden tint to every black cloud. "Fierce was the wild billow, Dark was the night, Care labored heavily From glimmer'd white, Trembled the mariners, Peril was nigh, Then said the God of Gods, "Peace it is nigh." Ridge of the mountain wave Lower thy crest, Wail of Euroclydon, Be thou at rest. Sorrow can never be, Darkness must fly, When saith the Light of Lights, "Peace, it is I." "Jesus, deliverer, Come thou to me, Sooth Thou my voyaging Over life's sea. Thou when the storms of death Roars sweeping by, Whisper, O Truth of Truth, "Peace, it is I." Immediately following the sermon in the diary was Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar,"--the writing all but illegible in places because of the feebleness of the hand, and which were the last it would ever write in this world, and which as a testimony of his unfaltering trust he would have written above any others in the language: "Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full of sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. "Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark; For, though from out our bourn of time and place The flood may bear me for, I hope to see my pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar." In the death of Ben Robson his family and friends have suffered an irreparable loss, as has the community in which he lived, for the world has far too few such citizens. His life was a benediction to all with whom he came in contact, and even those who knew him only slightly are sure that in his death a just man has been made perfect. That he made dear friends in his new home is attested by the many beautiful floral offerings they sent, which, with those from Higbee friends, had to be conveyed in a truck, they were so numerous. Interment was made in the Higbee cemetery by the side of her he had "loved and lost awhile." Though a member of the Masonic and Odd Fellow lodges of this place, the burial service of neither was used, it being his request that only a simple church service be held. Our deepest sympathy goes out with that of other friends to his loved ones, whose grief is all the easier to bear because of their certain knowledge that he passed out possessed of that peace of God, which passeth all understanding. Copyright notice: All transcriptions in this email are copyrighted by their creator. They may not be reproduced on another site or on any printed or recorded media, CD, etc. without specific written permission from Kathy Bowlin. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which it is presented, transcriptions, notes & comments, etc. is. It is however, quite permissible to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use only. Permission is granted to public libraries, and genealogical and historical societies to print and bind for the use of their patrons. Kathy Bowlin Additions, corrections, comments welcome.