Person:Roxy Bartlett (2)

Obit for Roxy Bartlett Wakefield

From: Warren Tribune Chronicle
Issue: Wed., 8 Dec. 1937

Mrs. Roxy Wakefield, County's Oldest Citizen, Taken by Death

Trumbull county's oldest citizen, Mrs. Roxy Wakefield, widow of Rev. Edwin Wakefield, died at her home in Greene at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday of the infirmities of age. She would have been 100 years old had she live until May 10, next year.... Born in Greene, she spent her life in that township. She was the daughter of Walter and Prudence Abbott Bartlett, who came to the Western Reserve from New England in the early years of the 19th century. Roxy was educatedin the famous select school at Greene taught by Charles Harrington; also she attended Hiram college. She was active for years in the Disciple church, her father and her husband both having been ministers in that denomination. As a matter of course, Mrs. Wakefield became a school teacher and she also taught music. For more than 40 years she was prominent in musical circles in her neighborhood. Possessed of a fine voice she was rated the best alto singer in the whole countryside at one time. She sang at musical conventions, sponsored by C.C. Case, well known composer, and at Moody and Sankey revival meetings. No singing school of her day was considered complete without her presence. Mrs. Wakefield became almost an institution in her community where everyone spoke of her affectionately as "Roxy." For years it was the custom in Greene to have a birthday party for her. When this had to be given up because of her failing health, the descendants of her contemporaries still kept up their custom of calling on her recurring birthdays.<bras her favorite> Ardenr reader until her sight failed, Mrs. Wakefield was a reader of books and magazines, her only nephew, H.A. Lane pf Pittsburgh, who was devoted to his aunt, always keeping her supplied with reading material. In her later years she liked poetry best and Vachel Lindsay was one of her favorites. Mrs. Wakefield was an abolitionist and a prohibitionist by inheritance as well as education. During the life of her husband, whose second wife she was, they resided on the old Wakefield homestead north of Middle Corners. Later she occupied a cottage at the Corners, but her last years were spent on her own parental farm, the Bartlett place, north of Kenilworth. The funeral will be held there, at the Clyde Cole home at 2 p.m. Thursday. The service will be in charge of Rev. E.W. Ellis and interment will be in the Pioneer cemetery in the northern part of the township where her forebears lie. the late Dr. Claude Lane, whose widow, Mrs. Cassie Lane, lives on Buckeye NW, was a nephew of Mrs. Wakefield. H.A. Lane of Pittsburgh, nephew, mentioned above, is her only surviving relative thru the Bartlett line.