Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1920-06-15
DEATH OF MRS. HARRIET B
PARLIN

last Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday, June
8th, Mrs. Harriet B. Parlin passed
away at her home in Wausau. She
had been in declining health for a
number of years. She was in the
eighty-frst year of her life and Of that
time, twenty-four years had been
of Charles C.. Parlin who was prin-
ciple of our schools for fifteen years
and who is now manager OF the Di-
vision of Commercial Research of the
Curtis Publishing Co., Philadelphia.
She had made hosts of warm friends
during her life in Wausau who sim
cerely mourn her death.
Mrs. Harriet Burnham Parlin was
native of Maine, having been born
in that state at Machias on the 18th
day of December, 1889. She was the
daughter of Captain George Burnham,
who was a veteran of the war of 1872
Her mother was Mary Longfellow
Burnham, a second cousin of the poet
Longfellow.
In 1862 she was united in marriage
with Gustavus T. Parlin. They came
to Wisconsin and made their home at
Brodhead, Wis, where Mr.. Parlin
entered the mercantile business con-
ducting the same until his death in
1880. In 1895 Mrs. Parlin went to
live with her son, Charles, in West
DePere, Wis, and year later came
to Wausau with him and had con-
tinued to reside here since that time.
She was a very devoted member of
the First Methodist church of this
city and was regularly in attendance
when her health permitted. Her work
in the Ladies' Aid society Of that
church during her active life, was es-
pecially to be remembered with pleas
ure by her associates.
She is survived by one son. Charles,
who still keeps his interest in Wau-
sau, being a member of our Masonic
bodies. His father was also a Mason.
She is also survived by four grand
children, Charles, who is in the Har-
ward Law school; George, who is in
the University of Pennsylvania; Ruth,
who is in the Germantown high school
and Grace who is a student in the
public schools of Philadelphia. Mrs.
Martha Burnham Sweet, a younger
sister of the deceased resides in Sno-
hOmish, Wash.
The funeral services were held on
Thursday afternoon at four o'clock
from the residence at 703 Fulton
street. the Rev. Richard Evans Off
ciating The remains were taken to
BrOdhead for interment Mr.. and
c. G. Parlin of Philadelphia were in
attendance at the funeral and accom-
panied the remains to Brodhead
The following poem was read at
Mrs. Parlin's funeral. 1t was written
by Mrs. Parlin's sister and read at the
funeral Of their mother:
We bend today DER coffined form,
And our tears fall softly down,
We look our last on the aged face,
With its look of peace, its patient
grace,
And her hair smoothed softly down.
We touch our own to the clay cold
hands,
From life's long labor at rest,
And among the blossoms white and
sweet,
We note a bunch of golden wheat.
Clasped close to the silent breast.
The blossoms whisper of fadeless
bloom.
OF land where fall no tears:
The ripe wheat tells of toll and care,
The patient waiting, the trusting
prayer,
The garnered good of the years
We know not what work her hands
had found,
What rugged places her feet;
What cross was hers, what blackness
of night,
We see but the peace the blossoms
white,
And the bunch of ripened wheat.
AS each goes up from the fields Of
earth,
Bearing the treasures of life;
God looks for some gathered grain of
good
From the harvest that shining stood
But waiting the reaper's knife.
Then labor well, that in death you go,
Not only with blossoms sweet.
Not bent with doubt and burdened with
fears,
And dead dry husks of wasted years,
But laden with golden wheat.