OBITUARY: Doris Hesse Toepper, Jacksonville, Jackson County, Oregon ********************************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE: ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ********************************************************************************* Transcribed and formatted for use in USGenWeb Archives by Elizabeth Corethers 27 Nov 2002 ********************************************************************************* TOEPPER, Doris Hesse, Jacksonville (Oregon) Democratic Times, Friday, 18 Mar 1887, p. 3: Mrs. Doris Hesse Toepper was born in Arnsee, Germany, March 25, 1816 and died at her home in Jacksonville March 11, 1887. She came to New York in 1840 and removed to New Orleans, and thence to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she was married to John Toepper in June, 1851. She united with the German Lutheran church in her early womanhood, and continued a member of that church until her death, holding sacred the tenets of the faith she embraced in the fatherland. March 18, 1855, she came to Jackson county, where MR. Toepper and preceded her and located on a farm in Willow Springs precinct. Here for 29 years Mrs. Toepper lived, and endeared herself to the hearts of a large circle of friends by the purity of her Christian life and the broad philanthropy of her German characteristics, that found greatest pleasure in doing good to others. Possessed of the noblest attributes of true womanhood she was a devoted wife, and though her own life was not crowned by the sacred office of maternity, several orphan children found happy homes with her, and their mature lives bear the impress of her wise and loving motherhood. In March, 1885, Mr. and Mrs. Toepper, having acquired an ample competence by their honorable industry, they sold their farm interests and came to Jacksonville to make their permanent home. Mrs. Toepper's health began failing soon after, and so continued until death entered the happy household and the loving wife was called hence to a realization of the greater good awaiting the pure in heart around the great white throne of eternity. All through the long weeks of her last painful illness, German and American friends joined with the sorrowing relatives to anticipate her wants, and all that loving hearts and willing hands could devise was done to alleviate her suffering. She clung to life, seeming rather to grieve for the husband and adopted daughter, whose home and heart wound be made desolate by her death. Out of the gloom and sorrow mantling like a pad the desolate hearthstone, comes the welcome plaudit, "Well done good and faithful servant," and her memory lives, ever green and blessed by those who knew and loved her best. She leaves to her husband the memory of her devoted love, to the children whose lives she blessed with more than a mother's gentleness the inheritance of her example, and to her friends a cherished legacy of friendship whose incense reaches out beyond the limits of time. She was buried on Saturday afternoon, the funeral taking place from the M. E. church, Elder Martin Peterson officiating by her special request. A large concourse of friends from the country and town followed her remains to their last resting place in the Jacksonville cemetery. She leaves many relatives in Germany, San Francisco and Jacksonville to mourn her death with the bereaved husband and adopted daughter. In common with their many friends we tender them our sincere sympathy. May softest breezes chant in solemn cadence the last sad requiem of the dreamless sleeper, and summer flowers distill their sweetest fragrance over her last resting-place.