11 July, 1929 - The Enterprise

MRS. ELLEN McKENNEY

Mrs. Ellen McKenney of this city passed away at the Blair hospital late Tuesday night at the age of eighty years, eleven months and seven days.

Ellen Waterhouse was born in Saco, Maine August 2nd, 1848, where she grew to womanhood. Of her family of eight children, she is the last to be called.

She was married in Saco, Maine, the town of her nativity, on February 26, 1875 to Alvan McKenney. To this union only one child was born, a daughter, christened Celia, who was taken from them by death when four years of age.

Soon after marriage, her husband took a position at Boston, Massachusetts in the freight department of the Boston and Maine railroad, in which position he remained for eighteen years. As he had two brothers, Wilbur and Maurice McKenney living in Washington county, Nebraska, they decided to move out west, and in 1895 moved onto the farm which he had purchased several years before, located north of Blair and now occupied by Henry Sorensen. Here they resided until 1905 when they moved to Blair, residing for a number of years on east Park street. In 1915 the husband passed away, not before, however, he had left his name engraved in this city’s history for it was he who organized the cemetery association, and it was he who was responsible for the cement walk and the beautiful row of maple trees between Blair and the cemetery.

In the demise of Mrs. McKenney, there are many friends who mourn. She was one who always made it a practice to find the good and beautiful in every character she met. She was a lover of flowers and the outdoors and was never so happy as when she was working in her garden. This, she has been unable to do for several years, but she did not complain, as she repeatedly said she was “quite comfortable and everybody nice to her”.

Words cannot express the beauty of her character. She was all that could be expected in a wife, a mother or a friend, and it would do mankind good to emulate her virtues.

She leaves to mourn her two nieces, Mrs. Oliver Hudleson and Miss Celia McKenney of Blair; two nephews, Allie McKenney of Blair and Maurice McKenney of the west; a great nephew, Lyle Dexter of Omaha and a great niece, Mrs. Blanche Bolt of Schuyler, Nebr., besides a number of relatives in their home state of Maine.

The funeral services are to be held from the Methodist church Friday, July 12 at two p.m. and interment will be made in the Blair cemetery beside the husband who has gone on before.

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

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