Given the news, and that today’s All Souls, I’d share what obituaries I found of young Universalist ministers.
From the 1902 Universalist General Convention Board of Trustees report.
Rev. Frances E. Cheney, of Saybrook, Ill., died December 13, 1901, aged 33.
Miss Cheney was graduated from the Ryder Divinity School in 1895, and soon after was ordained to the Universalist ministry. Her ministerial work was performed at Swan Creek, Ill., Richmond, Ind., and afterward upon the Mount Pulaski and Greenup circuits. — Miss Cheney “had a natually poetic temerament; and being of a literary turn of mind, her sermons were filled with that spiritual power that makes human life better and happier. Always sympathetic, no one ever sought her for help for comfort and failed to find it. She was ambitous beyond her strength, and, considering the weakness of her body, the amount of work she accomplished was almost phenomenal.”
Alas.. her poor church in Richmond, IN died about 29 years later when the Great Depression was taking off. Interestingly, the Richmond chapter of the Association of Universalist Women (also called the Universalist Womens’ Missionary Association) persisted through the mid-1960’s. A retired colleague of ours (whose name is sometimes confused Boy In the Band’s) often spoke at their meetings, and he performed the funeral rites for many of these elderly ladies as they too passed away in the late 60’s & early 70’s. Some of these elders may have been well acquainted with the Rev. Cheney from their more youthfull years in Richmond.