Forreston Herald, 1876

On Saturday the 6th at her residence three miles north of Adeline, Mrs. Catherine, wife of Samuel W. Coffman, aged 62 years.

It is not often our duty to record a more melancholy circumstance than the death of the beloved wife and mother named above.

After a few hours of sickness, unmarked by any symptoms that could cause alarm, until a few moments before her desolution - she quietly passed from life to death.

Mrs. Coffman came with her husband from Washington County, Md. in the spring of 1840 and settled on the then wild prairies of Illinois. With only the wealth that could be wrested from beneath the sod of the prairies, by hard labor, she commenced the life of an Illinois farmer's wife. A large family very soon gathered about her hearthstone. The constant labor and increasing care of those situated like her was sweetened by the reflection that soon her little ones would be able, first to assist, and then to relieve her from toil and care. These hopes were never fully realized. About thirteen years since that terrible disease, diptheria, appeared in Mrs. Coffman's neighborhood her family was attacked and when the work of death was done, one-half of her children were in the grave. Siknce then other actions have been met and bravely borne, although until now the family circle has not been invaded by death. Disease has given her many days of toil and anxiety. Mrs. Coffman was a woman of fine personal appearance with a quiet motherly dignity that won the hearts of all who met her. Partial deafness made conversation difficult and lessened her influence socially. She leaves a husband four years her senior, much broken in health, and to whom her loss comes with crushing force, as he had looked more than most men to his wife as a solace and counselor. Five children have survived her, all of whom have arrived at adult age.

Mrs. Coffman lied buried near her children in her family burying ground. Mrs. Coffman was a member of the Christadelphian Society. Elder Harper of Milwaukee, preached a sermon at the residence and conducted religious excercises at the grave.

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