The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-10-25
Mrs. Lavina Vance Hutchinson.

There is something in the complete passing
away of a generation by the death of its last
member that inclines us to even more than the
usual %solemnity in the contemplation of death.
Mrs. Hutchinson who. after many years in our
midst, has just died, was the youngest but one
of fifteen children. With observing eyes and
with the power of making experience of much
she saw, as well as of what she felt, she lived
through an important period of the worlds
history. When she was born, 1903, Jeffer-
son was President of the United States,
George III was King of England. Napoleon 1
was Emperor of the French, and had forced Eu-
rope to acknowledge him king of kings. She
lived through all the wars of our country since
Its independence, and almost through its entire
growth from the seaboard westward.
But great historic events were not SO much to
her as the revolutionary changes in society. She
recollected change for a dollar, made by two
strokes of an ak, cutting the coin into quarters;
cooking done in huge fre-places by the aid of
piles of red Goals; the careful covering of the
brands with ashes as the only method
of kindling the next days fire;
holding a coal in the tongs and blowing it to a
fame in order to light the candle, matches not
being yet invented, coal-oil not discovered. lamps
used only as makeshifts, and gas and electricity
forty and sixty years off. She rememered when
the datboat and the skif were the only means
of conveyance and communication on the Ohio;
when big four-horse wagons carried goods from
the East; when the stage, with its rousing horn,
we're new and roads were almost bottomless;
when postage out of the State was twenty-five
cents, in the State twelve and a half;
and money was worth as much again as it
is now, when the daily newspaper (her daily de-
light in late years. was not, when slavery was
all over the South and was only dying out in the
North.
She appreciated the active benevolent infu-
ences that every day make the world a more
comfortable living place. Such vicissitudes as
life has to offer and infict formed here a painful
discipline. Her keen grief for loss of property
sunk into insigni6cance before her passionate
sorrow for her dead. But her heart was too
strong to break. When left a widow with nine
young children dependent on her alone, she
watered her cornfelds in the dry sum-
mer that followed her bereavement,
and worked with a mans courage
and strength. Her high spirits, her broad com
mon sense, her wide sympathy, which was
rather personal interest than sympathy, and
which was more outspoken to the poor laborer
than to any other, her quickness of repartee, her
keen sense of humor, her hearty laughter, her
prompt intelligence, her quick generosity, her
Astounding hospitality, were forms of the same
energy that showed itself vehement and power
full in suffering and in toll. Beautiful hands!"
she exclaimed one day, catching the words
from some one; "hands were made for
use" Again, when the same subject was under
OlOouSnlOh, n "a Al SlOFcS u CdtCu no DQlc0-
| was taught to let Gods leather take Gods
weather"
She was one of the few favored mortals to
whom it was given to be thoroughly honest. She
told the truth and shamed the devil straight
along through life. She stood by the genuine.
She despised the alse-affectation vulgarity and
meanness, self-assumption, self-complacentfolly,
pride of money, pride Of appearance; not pride
of family, of this she had her share. A twenty
year attendant in the Insane Asylum says that
outside people now seem to him insane. Use
had no such effect on Mrs. Hutchinson.
Her sense of the homogeneous was not lost by
familiarity with a world of incongruity, nor was
there any blurring of the lines between right and
wrong. Her perception of the ridiculous and of
the base were fresh to the last week of her life.
Though the erect figure never bent. and the
bright eye never lost its fire, the pains of break
ing health and the infrmities of age were hard
to bear. II am tired, she said, "and ready to
60, if my Lord would only call" She had not
long to wait. Her illness was short, and was
consoled by the attentions of her
beloved children, and by the over
flowing tenderness of her own
large heart and by her perfect trust in her Re
deemer. Nobody that saw the stately figure in
the coffin can forget it. The aged cheek and lips
had lost their color. but the brow was cleared Of
wrinkles, and the marks of life's long conflict
and deep passion were subdued by the serenity
and repose of the last welcome sleep.