The Grim Reaper Comes to Visit the Elfrank Home

      While searching for some additional information on my ancestor’s I started browsing the Bollinger County, Missouri Newspapers Abstract of July 2, 1891 – December 31, 1896. I hit the jack pot, so to speak, and was able to locate an overwhelming amount of information. It’s nice to see that I found information on many other ancestors, along with the one I was conducting the search on. Luck would have it that most of the Elfranks and Estes families lived in Marble Hill, Bollinger County, Missouri.

    

      The wording in this obituary announcement is quite different than what we find in obituaries today. Some might view the beginning as strange and creepy, while others will notice how much she meant to the community and the one who wrote this announcement.

February 4, 1892

The grim reaper has invaded the happy home of our friend, Mr. Henry Elfrank, and took therefrom one who’s place can never be filled – the wife and mother. She had been a suffer for a long time from cancer in the stomach, and being reduced in strength, when the prevailing malady, la grippe, attack her she sank rapidly, and last Sunday night at about the hour of ten, surrounded by her family and a number of friends, all that was immortal of Mrs. Elfrank took its flight to the relm of peace and rest. She was a member of the Catholic Church, and was buried at Vinemont Tuesday. She leaves a husband and six motherless children, to whom we extend our most sincere sympathy. Local and General (Marble Hill)