The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-05-29
William Allen Whites
Farewell to Daughter
An Editorial From the Emporia (kas.) Gazette.

boy proposition didn't interest her
yet.
But young people-great spring
bending, dog-sagging carloads OF
'.kids"-gave her great pleasure.
Her tests were keen. But the most
fun she ever had in her life was acting
as chairman of the committee that got
UP the big turkey dinner for the poor
folks at the county home; scores OF
pies, gallons Of slaw; jam, cakes, pre-
serves, oranges and a wilderness OF
turkeys were loaded in the car and
taken to the county home.
And. being Of a practical turn of
mind, she risked her own Christmas
dinner by staying to see that the poor
folks actually got 1t all Not that she
was cynic; she just disliked to tempt
folks.
While there she found blind coll
ored uncle. very old, who could do
nothing but make rag rugs, and she
rustled up from her school friends rags
enough to keep him busy for season
The last engagement she tried to
make was to take the guests at the
county home out for car ride.
And the last endeavor of her life was
to get a restroom for colored girls in
the high school She found one girl
reading in the toilet because there was
no better place for colored girl to
loaf, and it inflamed her sense of in
Justice and she became nagging har-
pie to those who, she thought. could
remedy the evil.
The poor she had always with her,
and was glad Of it. She hungered
and thirsted for, righteousness; and
was the most impious creature in the
world.
She Joined the Congregational
church without consulting her parents;
not particularly for her sours good
She never had thrill of piety in her
life, and would have hooted at a "tes-
timony." But even as little child
she felt the church was an agency for
helping people to more Of lifes abun-
dance, and she wanted to help.
She never wanted help for herself.
Clothes meant little to her. It was a
fight to get new rig on her: but
eventually a harder fight to get 1t off.
She never wore jewel and had no
ring but her high school class ring,
and never asked for anything but a
wrist watch.
She refused to have her hair up:
though she was nearly II.
Mother" she protested, you don't
know how much I get by with, in nay
braided pigtails that I could not with
my hair up"
Above every other passion Of her life
was her passion not to grow up, to be
child. The tom boy in her, which
was big. seemed to loath to be put
away forever In skirts. She was a
Peter Pam" who refused to grow up.
Her funeral yesterday at the Congre-
gational church was as she would
have wished 1t; no singing, no flowers
save the big bunch Of red roses from
her Brother Bill's Harvard c1assmen-
Heavens. how proud that would have
made her! and the red roses from the
Gazette force-in vases at her head
and feet.
A short prayer, Paups beautiful es
say on Love" from the thirteenth
chapter of First Corinthians. some re-
marks about her democratic spirit by
her friend, John H. J. Rice, pastor and
police judge, which she would have de-
precated if she could. a prayer sent
down for her by her friend, Carl Nau,
and opening the service the slow, poig-
nant movement from Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata, which she loved.
and closing the service a cutting from
the Joyously melancholy first move
ment of Tchaikowski's Pathetic SYM
phony, which she liked to hear in GER
tain moods on the photograph; then
the Lords, Prayer by her friends in the
high school.
That was all.
For her pallbearers only her friends
were chosen: her Latin teacher, w. L.
Holtz; her high school principal, Rice
Brown; her doctor, Frank Foncannon;
her friend. w. w. Finney: her pal at
the Gazette office, Walter Hugher, and
her brother Bill
1t would have made her smile to
know that her friend, Charles O'Brien,
the traffic cop, had been transferred
from 9Th and Commercial 20 the corner
by the church to direct her friends
who came to bid her good-by.
rift in the clouds in gray day
threw shaft of sunlight upon her
nervous, energetic little body as it sank
to its last sleep. But the soul of her.
the glowing, gorgeous fervent soul of
her, surely was flaming in eager joy
upon some other dawn.