Margaret (Dick) Fearer obituary, source unknown

Funeral services for the late Mrs. T.J. Fearer were held Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock, conducted by the Rev. J.W. Baumgardner, pastor of the United Brethren church, interment being made at Mt. Zion cemetery. There was a large attendance of friends and neighbors of the deceased.
Mrs. Margaret Fearer departed this life at her home in Pine Creek Township May 16, 1902, aged 77 years, 5 months and 11 days.
She was born at Winchester, Va., December 5, 1824. Her parents, Peter and Mazy Dick, not long after her birth, moved to Washington Co., Md., where the father died in 1827, her mother and an older and younger sister surviving him. In the same year she went to live with and uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Coffman near Williamsport, Md.
Mrs. Fearer first came to Ogle County in 1845 with her uncle, Walter McNett and lived in Mt. Morris with her grandmother and uncle for about a year, when she returned to her home in Maryland. In 1847 she again came to Ogle County, this time with, and as a member of the family of her uncle, Daniel Coffman, making the long and tedious journey overland by team and wagon.
February 6, 1849, at the home of her uncle, D. Coffman, in Pine Creek Township, she was married to Thomas J. Fearer with whom she lived happily on the same farm in the same township until her death, a period of over fifty-three years. Nine children blessed this union, of whom five preceded the mother to the better land. The surviving children are Mrs. Ellen A. Miller of Beatrice, Nebraska, The Misses Blanch and Jennie R. Fearer and Wm. P. Fearer Esq., an attorney of this city.
At the age of 17 years she united with the Lutheran church at Williamsport, Md., under the pastorate of Rev. Christian Startzman, and to the day of her death lived a true and devoted Christian life, covering a period of more than sixty years. In the same of her marriage she cast her religious life and lot with her husband who was a member of the church of the United Brethren in Christ, and from that time to her decease she continued an earnest and devout member of the United Brethren church.
On the character and Christian life of the deceased it would be difficult to speak too highly. Like the true wife and mother that she was, her virtues shone most brightly in the midst of her own home, over which she presided during her long married life with an eye single to the highest and things in life. While possessed of a quiet and gentle nature, she was true in her convictions of what she believed to be right. She was naturally drawn to a religious life and during her long years of service, always carried about her an atmosphere of true piety and died as she had lived, possessed of a sweet and simple faith.
Aside from her religious life, the gentleness and helpfulness of her nature shone most brightly in deeds and ministrations of charity and love. And so, during a long life she was literally caring out in her daily walk the blessed words of her Master, "Bear ye one another's burdens," And as the Master whom she so much loved never allows a good deed to go unrewarded, so there came to her as she journeyed on in life a world of love not only from her husband, children and relatives, but from a large circle of friends and neighbors who have learned to love her in life now cherish her memory and sincerely mourn her death.
And thus it ever is and ever will be with gentle loving and true lives. Their brief day here does not mark the boundary of their influence for good. Something of them lingers here to bless the world and make it better long after they are gone. So it is and shall be with her of whom we speak. Gone from family, relatives and friends and yet abiding with them in memory and influence and the gentle ministrations of love. We shall not say how the influence of such lives shall go on blessing and molding other lives or who shall estimate the power of goodness to go on multiplying itself in the years to come. She was such a constant and devoted reader of the bible that it would be difficult to name her favorite chapters, but as she was a lover of the twenty-third Psalm, what more fitting close of a sketch of he life could be given that to her repeat the comforting and beautiful words: The 23rd Psalm followed.

Submitted by Jane Edson

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