Sarah (Bell) McMillan, widow of the late Taylor McMillan, of Signal, Ohio, died at her home 5 month 25, 1901 at 4:30 am, of pneumonia, age 94 yrs 11 months and 10 days. Interment in the East Carmel Cemetery on pm of the 27th.

The deceased was born on the day of the great solar eclipse, 6-15-1806. She was the oldest child of Smith and Martha (Buzby) Bell, who in a few weeks after their marriage in New Jersey, 8-25-1805, came to Ohio in a covered road wagon and settled on the 50-acre farm now occupied by Maurice and Edna Carey, one mile north-west of Signal, Ohio, where they lived and died, having raised 11 of their 12 children to maturity.

Smith Bell was born 9-25-1781, in Sussex County, Del. His father Thomas, son of William and Sarah (Tinley) Bell, was born on the eastern shore of "Old Virginia". The maiden name of Thomas Bell's wife was Thamar Smith. These Bell's were of Scotch descent and Methodist persuasion. Of the Tinley's and Smith's nothing further is now known.

Martha (Buzby) Bell was descended from a long unbroken line of English and Welsh Quaker ancestry, all of New Jersey: the family names of whom, in the order of their ancestral remoteness are, Buzby, Owen, Haines, Powell, Shinn, French, Parker and Austin.

The subject of this obituary was from earliest infancy inured to such exposures, privation and hardships as seem almost incredible to the present generation. Rocked in a sugar-trough, on the puncheon floor of a one-story cabin, built of un-barked hickory logs, w/only one tiny window 16X20, a clapboard door on wooden hinges and mud and stick chimney, down which came more light than through the window. She lived to witness worse injury to infants result from opposite extremes of living conditions.

The log schoolhouse at which she began her schooling was of a yet more primitive character; one whole end being back wall of the huge fire-place, the jams of which were the sides of the building. A huge mouthed chimney like an inverted funnel reached a few feet below the ascending smoke that missed the mouth of this chimney, would spread against the sooty roof seeking an outlet through its many crevices. About 60 feet north of this school was erected the building still standing and always known as: the Elkrun meeting house.

Her mother has "ciphered to the rule of three" but Sarah's schooling did not enable her to fully master long division; possible owing to her early fondness for poetry, of which she endeavored to copy all the best, w/quill pen and maple bark and copperas ink, on rough unruled, unfolded leaves of paper, which she has left carefully preserved in rolls, along w. numerous mementoes sent to her in childhood from Delaware by her Bell aunts and cousins, with the descendents of whom, after an almost total silence of 50 years, she and her son Smith began opening a renewal of correspondence only two weeks before her death.

She was united in marriage on 1/14/1834 with Taylor McMillan who died 11/8/1893, aged 90 years and 28 days. Three sons and three daughters were born of the union, five of whom reached maturity, the oldest two and youngest of whom are still living viz: Smith B. of Signal Oh; Thomas, Pensacola Fla., and Emily B., of Signal, who with her oldest brother has lived w/and cared for their aged parents almost constantly since 1876. Two grandsons in FL w/1 child each and two unmarried granddaughters near Signal complete the list of their 9 living descendants.

Sarah was named by her father who demanded the privilege and claimed the right to name his first daughter in honor of his oldest sister, whom he believed the best woman he ever knew, and further because if so permitted his wife might have the naming of all the rest of his children; How well he succeeded in his earnest efforts to have this daughter emulate the virtues of his admirable sister, can best be inferred by her life's retrospect which indicates that in childlike innocence, tenderness of heart, delicacy and persistence of affection, industry, frugality and benevolence, and composure & resignation at the approach of death, she was worthy of her name, and the esteem and confidence in which she was held by her friends. We find through her active life of care the "self-forgetting zeal. That sought another's grief to share, Another's woes to heal."

OUR MOTHER

[Sarah (Bell) McMillan died May 25,1901, aged 94 years, 11 monthly and 10 days.]

Dear mother of our childood days,
And child of our maturist years,
Thou cared for all our childlike ways,
As we for thine of recent years,
Ending this morn in grief and tears.
Last eve beheld thee active still,
And midnight full of conscious life;
From then, but three weeks more, until
Thou'd reach, if thou could but survive,
The full round age of ninety-five.
Thy empty chair, thy idle cane,
Cape, bonnet, apron, shoes and shawl,
As left last eve, by thee, remain
And vainly there await thee, all
In stillness that our hearts appall.
Expectant with returning morn.
Were we, that each for thee resume
Their service; but at morning dawn [doom
Deased such hear privilege, and death's
Held thee from thy warm sunlit room.
Thy aged form forever stilled!
So soon to pass from mortal view!
Thy vacant place to ne'er be filled;
They earthly life to ne'er renew;
Things next designed to never do;
Dearly beloved:--thy work is done,
But much and well thy life has wrought;
'Tis finished; thy full race is run:
With all thy labors come to naught?
Can all thy goodness be forgot?
Time's flood of years my overflow,
Oblivion's pass may SEEM to hide,
All trace of thee and thine, yet know
Our faith in truth is not belied;
Whatever ought to WILL ABIDE.
Thou would'st not enter into strife
O'er differences; enough for thee
Concerning thoughts of future life.
By unwavering faith, to feel and see,
And KNOW, what's right and best WILL BE:
And that if we the very best
We know, have lived this life that is,
We'll be as fully, surely blest,
As we have best the least of His
Who gave this truth its emphasis.
Content with humble victories won
Still ready for the next best task
Always the best, and that well done;
Readier to help than aid to ask,
Such was thy life-work to its last.
Soon we must take our farewll view
Of they cold form; but still in thought,
Our spirit-mingling may renew,
If there's a heaven within us wrought,
Such thyself divinely sought;