Obituary of Mary Borland, Pulaski County, AR

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Submitted by: Bill Bogges <billboggess@webtv.net>
        Date: 18 Feb 2006
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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(transcribed 02/18/06)

Copy from The Arkansas History Commission

THE LITTLE ROCK TRUE DEMOCRAT

Wednesday:  November 5, 1862    p 1, c 3 & 4

OBITUARY. --- Mary Isabel Borland, wife of Col Solon Borland, died at
Little Rock, Oct 22, 1862, in her 39th year.

   This talented, beloved, and now much lamented lady, the only child of
George and Mary D Melbourne, was born in Concordia parish. La, Oct 3,
1824, received her education at Mrs Tevis School in Shelbyville, Ky, and
in April, 1844 came with her parents to reside in Little Rock, where ,
May 27, 1845, she was wedded to Col Borland.  One son and two daughters
blessed their union; and the fond mother, looking forward to their
future, devoted herself with ardor to the proper training of the
youthful minds which God had committed to her guardianship. But her
visions of felicity were cruelly dissipated. The brightest jewel in her
family circle, her only son, who had attained the promising age of 16
years emulating the example of his older and more sturdy companions,
after wringing from his mother a reluctant consent, entered the army,
and at the close of a few months' service, died in Texas, among friends,
but far distant from his loving and beloved parents.

   For years a great suffer from complicated disease,  this affliction
proved too much for her physical strength, and she was prostrated by it.
>From that time she sank rapidly, and neither medical skill nor the
untiring and affectionate  attentions of her husband, children and
friends, availed anything. Devoted in her family, her desire to live was
strong, especially on account of her young daughters, just at the age
which most needs a mother's care; but, being also an earnest and an
humble Christian, and knowing that her restoration to health was
impossible, she resigned herself the will of her Heavenly Father, and
evinced her faith in the precious promises of God., by paying for
permission to put off her mortality, and take her appointed place with
those who love and served Him.

  Two years after her mother preceded her to the haven of rest. but her
father still lives, as also her husband and two daughters, to whom she
was inexpressibly dear. While they mourn her loss as one that is to them
greater than all others they could have sustained, and wholly
irreparable on earth. they mourn not without hope. Gone to meet those of
her household who have preceded her to Heaven, she is now waiting there
for those she left behind only for a short time her parting injunction
to them having been, to rejoin her in the realms of everlasting rest,

   As a great appropriate conclusion to this notice, the following just
and sad eloquent tribute to her memory, from the pen of one by whom she
was alike well known and most highly esteemed, is reproduced from the
columns of another journal [The Arkansas Gazette, Oct 25th, p 2, c 2]:

   "Death, the unrelenting devourer of the human family, has rarely laid
his blighting hand upon one so gentle, so amiable, so excellent, so
generally beloved.

   "Prolonged and painful as her wasting and fatal affliction was, she
bore it with Christian patience, meekness, and fortitude, in the spirit
of the submissive child, who is sensible that the father chastises for
its good.

   "Though unpretending. she was a gifted, a superior woman. She has an
abiding place in the memories and in the affections of thousands, of the
people of this State, who have listened, in years gone, to the
surpassing sweetness and thrilling modulations of her voice. And in her
visits to the Capital of the then United, but now severed, States, with
her distinguished husband, Senators, Statesmen, and the Ministers of
Kings and Emperors, have listened, in the social circle, with admiration
to her wonderful eloquence in song.

   "Her harp is broken --- to us her voice is still, in the solemn hush
of the tomb,but we are permitted to believe, that, with renewed voice,
and an unfailing harp, she is charming the ears of kindered spirits in
the beautiful land of the redeemed."

[Burial site unkown]