Died 1 January 1928

Burial in Memorial Park, Lincoln

Published in Blair Pilot on 11 January 1928

Veteran-Civil War

MRS. NEWELL'S FATHER DIES

PASSED AWAY AT HIS HOME IN LINCOLN SUNDAY EVE. JANUARY 1ST 1928

WAS 92 YEAR OF AGE

Rev. Harmon Bross, D.D., father of Mrs. A.F. Newell, of Blair, died at his home in Lincoln Sunday evening at the age of 92 years, 2 months and 19 days.

Mrs. Newell, who was called to Lincoln late last week, was with him Saturday and Sunday and at the end. Mr. Newell and the children went to Lincoln Tuesday and the funeral occurred Wednesday afternoon at the Vine Congregational church, burial being made in Lincoln Memorial park.

Dr. Bross was the next to the oldest living graduate of the Chicago Theological Seminary at the time of his death, having begun his ministry in Michigan, the state of his boyhood, in 1858. He served the churches for more than sixty years before retiring from the active ministry, after which he served the Nebraska G.A.R. in an official capacity for nine years.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he left his church and served in the 18th Michigan Infantry, Company G, as a second lieutenant until he was forced by ill health to resign. Returning to the ministry he served the First Congregational church in Ottumwa, Ia., for seven years, during which time the building still used was erected. He then came to Crete, Neb., and after a twelve year pastorate he was called to the general state work and for 22 years was a superintendent, first in the Black Hills district and then for 14 years was state superintendent of the Nebraska Congregational churches. For 24 years he was registrar of the Nebraska Conference, of which body he was also a past moderator.

Upon giving up the office state superintendent when past 70, Dr. Bross expected to retire from the more active service, but the Congregational church in Wahoo, Neb., immediately called him to its pastorate, and he remained with that church most happily for six years. During that period the church building burned. He at once led the people in a successful building campaign, after which the church erected a new and modern parsonage for his use. Upon his retirement from the Wahoo pastorate he was unanimously elected chaplain of the Nebraska state senate.

From the organization of the national G.A.R. Dr. Bross was a most loyal and enthusiastic and active member. In the year in which he was honored by an election as commander of the Department of Nebraska he led 400 delegates to the national encampment at Boston. Nine years ago he was appointed assistant adjutant general and quartermaster general of the Nebraska G.A.R., which placed him in charge of the state general office in the capitol building at Lincoln, and he has been reappointed to that office by each commander ever since. Up to, and including last August, he has been found regularly at his desk each morning and was officially in charge of the office at the time of his death. He has missed few national encampments of the G.A.R. and was at Grand Rapids last September, that having been his last public appearance.

Dr. Bross was, during his professional lifetime, a strong and widely recognized factor in Congregational church affairs. As a delegate, he was present at the organization of the national council at Oberlin, O., in 1871. During his administrative life in Nebraska he greatly endeared himself by tireless personal supervision, especially to the struggling churches in the newly developing western sections of the state.

His genial and optimistic nature, profoundly religious life, efficient methods, and a rare ability in remembering names and faces, drew to him a great host of warm personal friends in every section of Nebraska. In his home life he was greatly loved and venerated as a most loving and tender husband and father. Scores of men now in middle life think affectionately of him as the man who started them in ways and lives of usefulness.

Dr. Bross is survived by his widow, Mrs. Lydia M. Bross, now 89 years of age, who has been his companion for 62 years; by two sons, W. Perry, of Kansas City, Mo., and Philip F. of Lincoln, and a daughter, Mrs. Alice B. Newell, of Blair. He also leaves a daughter by his first wife, Mrs. Inez Gordon, of Wagon Mound, New Mexico.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~

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