Obituary of Wm. McCormick by Rev. O.U. McProud

William McCormick was born in Muncie, Indiana, May 27, 1837, died February 12th, 1926, being 88 years, 8 months and 15 days of age. He was born of Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch parentage, and his whole life bore proof that he had inherited all the characteristic of his ancestry, as shown by his keen wit and humor, his philosophy and undaunted pluck, his tenacity and determination to finish whatever he undertook; his abhorrence of whatever was untruthful and unfair.

His love of flowers, birds and trees was a characteristic well known to all his old friends and neighbors, with which he kept himself surrounded all of his life.

Mr. McCormick was one of Blair’s pioneers, coming here from Indiana in the spring of 1869, and had a large part in the early history of this city. The following are some of the affairs in which he took an active part: building and conducting a general store of merchandise, contracting and building for the F. E. & M. V. R.R. Co., the construction of the first sidewalk in Blair, inspected and ok’d by John I. Blair, president of the railroad company, after whom the town was named; the contracting and planning for the city of all the main streets with trees on both sides of the street, many of which are living today.

Mr. McCormick planted the first commercial apple orchard in the county. It was a plat of 40 acres. Afterward he planted and set out 120 acres in trees and small fruit, known as the Mount Hope Fruit Farm. This farm has produced fruit and labor for thousands of people for 46 years.

He was active in other lines and in aiding to build the Methodist Church, personally supervised the placing of the bell that hangs in the church today. Also, he dug and owned the first public well in Blair on the present State Bank corner. He conducted the drafting of the ditch laws, which to this day are worthy mementos to this active, honest, public-spirited, generous hearted, sturdy pioneer.

The reflection of his religious attitude was manifest in the answer he gave some years ago when asked if he believed in God and a resurrection to a life hereafter. His reply was, “Can a man live eighty odd years with all his faculties alert and intact, observing each winter the death of flowers and trees, grasses and shrubbery, and then to witness each spring a resurrection and return to life of all these things, and then fail to see that these things created on earth for man’s purposes and pleasure by the Almighty and symbols of the spiritual resurrection, and the eternal hereafter of a spiritual life?”

The deceased was united in marriage to Mary Burke at Muncie, Ind., in 1857, the latter departing this life in August 1903. Two children were born to this union, Mrs. Bertha Stradling and Mrs. W. J. Koopman, both of Blair. Also surviving him are 5 grandchildren and one brother at Muncie, Ind., James McCormick and at least forty nephews and nieces who cherish the memory of ‘Uncle Will.”

THE FUNERAL SERMON

Gathered from the foregoing statement, we have here before us the brief consideration some thought that spontaneously arise within our minds upon this occasion. To those who know, even a mere outline of the deceased’s active years no more fitting work of holy writ could be set before us than the familiar third verse of the first Psalm, “And he shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water.” This statement of a dozen words is brim full of suggestions appropriate to the life we are set to review in the brief manner.

“A Tree!” Not a day goes by in Blair but that someone remembers and remarks upon the effect the cutting of venerable trees on the right and left would have upon Mr. McCormick should he have come downtown and beheld their destruction. For almost all the large trees in our town are co-temporaneous with him. Not only did his hands put out many of them, but he has seen more than a half century of summer’s sunshine and tempest and winter’s bitter blast pass over them. Through the years he looked upon their repeated miracle of autumn death and spring-time resurrection and with their growth there unfolded in his mind the deeper philosophy of soul life, and an accumulating zest and love of life that have projected the personality well across a century.

“A Tree” With the poet’s eye for the single, or crowning attribute of a tree, Joyce Kilmer has written in words that almost dazzle and pain like the sudden glare of the sun’s full light:

I think I never see a poem so lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest,

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms go pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rein.

Poems are made by fool like me,

But only God can make a tree.

And what of beauty and worship, and what of symbolic representation of death and resurrection what of poetry, what testimony to the fact, and matchless power of God who has given us life and to the soles sure tokens of immortality the poet saw, likewise did the soul’s eye of William McCormick behold. So, about the sturdy trunks and through the swaying branches of our beautiful trees did he entwine his life’s affections, and under soothing shade by day and their soft shadows at night, no doubt, worshiped the spirit of the departed.

“Planted by river of water.” To this man never came the trees with their lessons, as certain theories say, from some dark primordial beach where fortuitous concourse of atoms danced into a chance creation. But to him a divine hand planted. In living form the lessons of soul life were set up in the beauteous, life-serving, lifesaving trees, planted by the deep flowing sources of the life, the rivers, reminding us ever that the life of the soul is deeper than the shallow hillside soil where pitiless drouth and scorching heat withers and cuts off at noonday the precious life, reminding us that a soul planted hard by the eternal courses of the “river of life” has promise of the life that now is, of being the salt of the earth, of inheriting its true substance and of flourishing while thousands scorched and withered by passion’s blighting winds fall on the left and on the right hand.

As a providential aftermath of a life much with nature. Mr. McCormick was enabled to retire largely from contact with neighbor old and young, after a physical infirmity that befell him ten years ago, and to keep on in the development of his innate religion combined with a philosophy of life that has broken spontaneously out in apt and telling statements, LIFE! How to prolong it, how best to relate it to nature, how to save it from the wiles of evil propensities, evil surroundings, LIFE! I can think that had Mr. McCormick’s eyes chanced to fall upon Steel’s fitting words he would have incorporated their sentiment in this well selected expressions of a sound philosophy. For says Stelle:

“There is nothing which must end, to be valued for its continuance. If hours, days, months, and years pass away, it is no matter what hour, what day, what month, or what year we died. The applause of a good actor is due him at whatever scene of the play he makes his exit. It is thus in the life of a man of sense; a short life is sufficient to manifest himself a man of honor and virtue; when he ceases to be such he has lived too long; and while he is such, it is of consequence to him how long he shall be so provided he is so to his life’s end.”

But, no doubt, the wall of partition was broken down between and philosophies of this man and his religious frame of mind. How like him would be the words of Melmoth:

“ I cannot but take notice of the wonderful love of God to mankind, who, in order to encourage obedience to his laws, has annexed a present, as well as a future, reward to a good life; and has so interwoven our duty and happiness together, that while we are discharging our obligations to the one, we are, at the same time, making the best provisions for the other.”

To me there is no greater fascination than pioneer life. Think of a life that develops when and where as yet there are no settled social activities: when and where religious life is an aspiration; when and where existence is a strain and struggle fraught with fear and disquiet, and most frugal modes of living! Yet that was the lot when more than 40 years ago this edifice was reared (splendid in its day) he was one of a small number who espoused the cause of planting and adequate church building in the community. His home was open for the coming and going bishops, presiding elders and preachers. He was among the men who gave in a sacrificial manner to insure the erection of and payment for this very church building.

Only three weeks ago he sat for an hour and rehearsed the story of dedication of the church. Often has he gone over the stirring days of early Methodism in Blair and surroundings territory,”

And as in many other places where pioneer men strove and built better than they knew, so it is here today. We sit here in this house where the physical ears of one who aided in bequeathing the precious boon of a church to this generation, no longer can hear praise or blame and needs much ascribe a token of appreciation to his memory and thank our heavenly Father, for the far-reaching influence of pioneer men, for their goodly achievement.

Today, with loving hand, we lay to rest the earthly temple of clay in which dwelt and thought and toiled the spirit of William McCormick. With that sweet mantel of charity with which we, too, must some day be covered over, we o’erspread whatever of fault attended this devoted father, sturdy pioneer and neighbors, believing that like as the tree that is planted by rivers of water which bringeth forth his fruit in his season, so has earthly career and experience of Mr. McCormick brought forth and garnered the precious fruits of eternal life.

And while his body in its wonderful appearance of unspent energies lies in silent repose, we have the strong hope that his tireless soul has entered the realms where it rests from earth’s cares and has begun an endless career of unfolding into an ever increasing splendor of glorious life.

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The funeral of Wm. McCormick was held at the Methodist Church at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, Rev. O.U. McProud officiating. The obituary and the funeral sermon will be found elsewhere in this issue of The Pilot. Those from out of town to attend the service were: Mrs. N. D. Ballentine, of Baltimore, Md., Mrs. Myrtle Killan of Wakefield, W. P. Cook, of Ft. Calhoun, Capt. Alphonse Kilian and family, W. J. Cook, N. Bracken, Mrs. Wm. Beyer, Mrs. Julia Kelly, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Kunold, Sr. and Jr., and Everett, Mr. and Mrs. B. L. Koopman, Mrs. Ed Vernon, P. Koopman, Mrs. Ed Vernon, P. Koopman, Mrs. J. VanVleet and Harry VanVleet, all of Omaha.

The honorary pallbearers were John McQuarrie, M. F. Haller, James E. Maher, Wm. Wilson, H. H. Reed, J. W. Newell, Sr., and Sam Haller. The active pallbearers were W. J. and W. P. Cook, J. F. White, J. R. Smith, C. T. Farnham and P. M. Tyson.

Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clipping on file at the Blair Public library.