New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-02-14
HUNDREDS MOURN
MOLLIE FANCRER
File Through Brooklyn
House All Afternoon to
Take Last Farewell.

With the sleet singing their faces a
long line Of mourners yesterday after
noon pushed through the snow that
drifted around the little old house at
100 Gates Avenue. Brooklyn, where
Miss Mollie Fancher lay dead, after
fifty years Of suffering bravely met.
No one could have devised more
wonderful tribute to the courage that
had made Miss Mollie sing and laugh
on her sickbed than that unceaslng pro-
cession Of the men, women and children
who had loved her. From , O'Clock
until after there was not one interval
when the narrow, old-fashioned hall OF
tn. cottage was not crowded. The pro-
cession filed on up the steep stairs to
the room where four walls had seemed
to bound Miss Mollie's life, and where
now the four-post bed had been re-
placed by coffin covered with roses
There were all sorts of persons griey-
ing there women who wore orchids
rinned TO their furs and women who
Rugged thin shawls around their shout
ders: men OF power and influence and
the laboring men who had been her
peirhbors; little children who cried be-
cause Miss Mollie, who had never let
them 90 unnoticed before, did not speak
to them. Men have led great battles or
written great books without being so
mourned when they came to die as this
simple Brooklyn woman, who merely
"liyed in a house by the side Of the
road and was a friend to man"
The room was gay with flowers but
no solemn white blossoms such as are
chosen for other funerals. They were
chiefly great clusters of pink roses, be
cause Miss Mollie had loved to have
everything about her joyous. Masses
of them quite hid the coffin, and into
the ribbon tied about it had been
tucked the ones that she would have
valued most Of ali. tiny, dragged
bunch of violcts. with stems bruised
from being clutcned too tightly by
some warm little hand.
A cluster of lilies -of-the-yslley had
been put in Miss Molie's folded hands,
and their gladness and youth were re
peated in her placid face. Her friends
remarked that she looked many years
Younger than at her golden jubilee,
less than two weeks ago. and that her
smile was just the one which she had
worn through all her years OF SUI
fering.
Il want you never to forget that
YOU have seen Miss MolIe Fancher,"
a father said, as he Fitted little girl
with bobbed faxen hair TO the edge
Of the coffin
Death had been so gracious to Miss
Molle that the child was not fright
cned, even by the solemnity OF her
fathers manner or by the sobbins IN
the room.
"Did she have any children, papa ?"
She asked, as he set her down again.
yes" answered her father. All
those who were in trouble or who need
ed lesson in being brave were her
children"
And none of those who heard, and
who knew how strong her influence had
been. felt that Miss Mollie Fancher
had lived an uneventtul or barren
life.
A white-haired woman. who stood
looking down into the coffin with the
impersonal interest that some very old
persons seem TO feel IN death, said that
She had known Miss Molie before the
fall from horse and the subsequent
streetcar accident had tied her to a
half-century in d fourpost bed.
There wasn't many as full OF lie,
she said.
Yesterday afternoons funeral wa
open TO all the public who had been
interested in Miss Mollie. Services
will be held tonight at her home,
which only her relatives and most m
innate friends Will attend. with the
Rev. Avery Shaw and the Rev Joseph
Burrell officiating. Miss Molhe VIII De
buried i'm Greenwood Cemetery.