Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1924-02-08
DEATH COMES GENTLY TO
FORMER PRESIDENT WOOD
ROW WILSON, WITH Low
ED ONES AT BEDSIDE
Flash, Like Smile, Lights Face AS
Life Passes, Bringing Peace
Mrs. Wilson, Holding Hand of Dying Man;
DR.. Grayson and Daughter
Margaret Present


ity haven from the storms and sor
rows of troubled world.
In the prayerful quiet of Sunday
morning, death folded him gently in it,
embrace and bore him TO his maker.
He passed from life while he slept
| with those he loved best close about
him. His broken body had weakened
little by little until the last spark of his
vitality went out. But his spirit was
supported to the last by the indomi-
table courage of the old fighting days.
In his last wakeful moments he told
loved ones that he knew the end had
come, and was ready.
OFFICIAL MOURNING PROCLAIMED.
President Coolidge called Sunday at
the house of bereavement, expressed
his regret and his readiness to be help
full, and then issued a proclamation OF
thirty days official mourning. Over
the White House and the government
departments, on the natL,n'S fighting
ships at sea and over the outposts of
Amer ic2n diplomacy in foreign lands
the Stars and Strips were brougnt 10
half mast. Congress recessed in re-
spect for his memory, and the whole
machinery of the government whose
renius be was for eight momentous
years .tood still on "Wednesday, the
day OF his funeral.
The frayed remnant of his mortality
lays in the chamber whose walls
looked down upon the last scene OF a
career that had known all the heights
and depths of human emotion. In
death he appeared as if in peaceful
slumber, his features serene and COM
posed and his square jaw set with the
old determination. But the lines were
somewhat deeper and heavier, and the
flashing fire of his eye has gone out
forever.
The bed on which Woodrow Wilson
died and where his body lay is OF
massive oak, reproduction of the bed
built at the White House for Lincoln
and used by every President since. 1t
| is of unusual length and has golden
American eagle over the head. 1t was
made to the order of Mr.. Wilson be-
fore he retired from the presidency,
and was installed in the street house
he had selected as his future home.
INVALID MORE THAN FOUR YEARS.
Although he had not known well
dav since he crossed the threshold OF
his place of retirement, or for mo aths
before, last Friday saw the beginning
of the end of his long illness. His
collapse during his western speaking
trip in 1919, followed by stroke oi
paralvsis soon after his return to
Washington, had made him almost an
invalid long ago. Early last week q
slight digestive disorder further
weakened his delicate vitality, and on
Friday his friend and physician, DR.
Grayson, found his condition growing
hourly more serious.
/ He refused nourishment, and by
Saturday night he was barely con-
lscious. At 9 o'clock he fell asleep
and never awakened again. 1t was
if1:l5 Sunday morning that life finally
went out. From first to last he was
without pain, and in his last wakefu
moments he appeared to be resting il
complete comfort.
| AS the end approached the little
group watching in the sick room drew
lnear about him. Mrs. Wilson sat OF
1.-The bed beside him, with his almos
llifeIess hand in both of hers. Close By
was his eldest daughter, Margaret
Wilson, and DR.. Grayson, faithful in
his ministrations since the first sign
lof Illness more than four years ago
watched for some new way at last tt
help him as he crossed the bar.
| DEATHS CONQUEST SLOW.
| There was nothing to be done
more and more feeble became the
Ipulse beat; there was quickening Of
1.-THE breath; little by little death wa:
lcompleting its conquest. A quick
Iflutter of the eyelids, faint twitch,
ALMOST like a smile. across the wasted
features, and the spirit of the grea
iwar President had burst at last the
Ilong-weakening letters that bound i
Ito earth.
! Thus he who had dreamed a higf
Idream of peace for all the world hae
found peace for himself and had lief
lhehind a world still tossed by strife
land turmoil.
| Thus he, against whom life hae
turned at last after leading him through
lpaths of greatest glory, found dealt
gentle and even merciful.
/ Thus, with the soft chanting of hymn
Floating in on the Sabbath air, wa
| written the last of that imperishabI,
chapter of human history comprising
1.-The life of Woodrow Wilson.