Nancy (Whitney) Burke (1816-1891) Obituary

"The Byron Express"
May 15, 1891

ANOTHER OLD SETTLER GONE

Our community was saddened Saturday morning by the intelligence of the death of Mrs. Patrick Burke. She had been in feeble health for several years and last fall her family, hoping to improve her condition by a change of climate, took her to Florida. The change failed to make any permanent improvement and she returned to her Byron home Saturday, May 2d, and lived but one week longer, when the end came.
She was born May 14th, 1815, in Kingston, Luzerne Co., Pa., and came to Illinois in the Spring of 1845, and was married to Patrick Burke, June 25, 1846. Her subsequent life was spent on a farm three miles north of Byron, with the exception of the last eleven years which she lived in the village of Byron.
She was the mother of four children, three boys and one girl, all of whom have preceed her to the other world, except one son, Edmund, now a lawyer, residing in Chicago.
She was a consistent member of the M.E.Church, loved, the Services of the Sanctuary, and was a close and devoted student of God's word. When the end came it found her ready and she left as her dying testimony. "He is bringing me safely home." She died, in the triumphs of the Christian faith, Saturday morning May 9 leaving her husband and son, and a host of friends to mourn her departure.
The funeral was held Sabbath Afternoon, May 10, in the presence of a congregation that filled the M.E.Church in its utmost capacity. Rev. F.W. Nazarene, her pastor, preached from the text, "the memory of the just, is blessed." Rev. J.S. Braddock, an old friend of the family, made some interesting remarks, followed by a few words from Rev. Barton Cartwright, a former pastor.
The floral decorations were very elaborate. The remains were interred in the Byron Cemetery.

Submitted by Whitney Fearer Morrill

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