The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-01-21
MRS. SUSAN SENTER.
Funeral on Sunday. Some Incidents
of Her Life.

of Her Life.
The funeral services of the late
Susan Lyford Senter, were held from
the home of her son, John II. Senter,
on Sunday afternoon. Neither her sis
ter, Sally Lyford, of Wolcott, who is
over ninety years old, nor her nephew
and niece. Horace and Electa Lyford,
of Warren. were able to be present OF
the eleven grandchildren, who survive
her, seven we're in attendance. Three
great grandchildren out of fourteen
were present, sharply evidencing the
length of years of the deceased John
H. Senter, the only surviving son Of
the second marriage, completed the
circle of relatives that followed the re.
mains to their last resting place in
Green Mount Cemetery.
The remarkable memory of Mrs.
Senter and her grasp of details was a
subject of comment among those pres
ent at her funeral. To hear her
describe the visit of Lafayette to
hOliiBOlltl anu bub lnOlu6ubb d1b6uuluR
it was an entertainment not to be for
gotten. In her soldier ancestry she
felt worthy pride-both her grand
fathers serving AS officers, and her
father as private, in the continental
army. Her soDs, too, were soldiers.
All served in the war of the rebellion
and one fell in the battle of the Rap.
pahanock.
The special aud honorary certificate
of membership in the Association of
the Daughters of the American Revo-
luton given her, with the gold spoon
from the same organization, in recog-
milton of her martial and patriotic an
cestry, to Mrs. Senter were sources of
great and justifiable pride and pleasure.
@. H. Carpenter of Gleason & Com
pany had charge of the funeral ar
rangements and the bearers were j.
W. Brock, Collins Blakely, A. J. Sib-
ley, @. A. G. Jackson, G. W. Wing,
and M. E. Smiley.
The officiating minister, Rev j. E.
Wright, read Cowper's familiar poem,
beginning:
God moves in mysterious way"
a portion of which she had repeated
to him at his last interview with her /;
and his remarks which followed GEN.
tered about the thoughts of old age
and motherhood. Citing Longfellow's
words: I venerate old age; and
love not the man who can look with
out emotion upon the sunset of life,
when the dusk of evening begins to
gather over the watery eyes, and the
shadows of twilight grow broader and
deeper upon the understanding, he
added in substance: Still more does
old age appeal to our hearts when it
presents, instead of emi-plindness,
and a weakened intellect, faculties
we'll preserved, eye-sight good. hear
ing only slightly impaired, and a
mind alert and strong, studying the
days doings with unfailing interest,
past with tenacious grasp. This re-
tention of mental vigor, even at the
age of ninety-ive years, though the
physical strength had waned some
what, is itself an evidence that the
essential man does not of necessity
decline and die with the failure OF
his bodily powers. The longing for
continued life, too, exhibited in her
| otrn tn live 70. md ,f,,r
illustrates the natural instructive
craving for immortality, which must
needs be met by the fact of future
life. The speaker argued that death
belongs to the divine order of things,
is as natural as birth, as natural as
sleep; that it is thing written on
the physical constitution as inevit-
able, according to Psychologists, after
the lapse OF hundred years or so
that it comes indeed to many at an
earlier age, and then we are doubly
distressed, as at something which has
broken the natural order ;-(and here
he referred to the recent decease in
comparative youth of Mrs. Estes J.
Hatch, whose funeral was held in the
same rooms last October - but that
death coming to one in extreme old
age, and coming quietly, peacefully,
like the fall Of
Autumn fruit that mel.
lowed long
Fen wondered at because 1t dropped
no sooner, -
is a part of the divine order, to be
accepted with calmness, and grateful