Person:Frances Graves (7)

In Memorium.

Died - In Lewistown, Illinois, Feb. 21st, 1871, FRANCES SIMMS, widow of Col. R. C. Simms, in her eightieth year.

- She was born in Madison County, Virginia, A. D. 1792. Her maiden name was Graves; was married to Col. Simms in 1812, and removed with him to Fulton County, Illinois, in 1835, when this was a pioneer country. The inconvenience and hardships incident to a pioneer life she bore with becoming fortitude. Being among the first settlers, her eminent social qualities and her high-toned character exerted a most healthful influence upon settlers coming to the country at a later period, as well as on the rising generation.

In 1844 she connected herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, under the ministry of Rev. N. G. Berryman, now of Cambridge, Mo., for whom she always expressed a high and tender regard as a true and faithful minister of the gospel. She always expressed a painful regret about the difficulties in the church of her choice between the North and South. A short time after the Episcopal Methodist church here was built, and regular service was held every Sabbath, she connected herself with it. While this was her decided preference, she scrupulously avoided any unkind allusion to those Methodists whose preferences were different. The strongest expression she would use was that she thought injustice had been done to the South.

All these qualities and virtues that tend to make women honorable, amiable and attractive, were most happily blended in her nature and character, and were manifest in her daily walk and conversation. She had a strong will, fixed determination, without dictation or stubbornness, firmness, fortitude and great powers of endurance, mingled with modesty, meekness and tenderness. These natural qualities that she possessed in such an eminent degree and such happy combination, were greatly strengthened, beautified and sweetened by genuine, heartfelt, practical piety. She never made any ostentatious allusions to her faith, hopes, fears, sufferings, temptations or enjoyments, but proved her faith by her works; the power, sweetness and efficiency of the gospel by the patient and heroic fortitude with which she bore the ills of life and the infirmities of age.

It might be expected that one possessing such traits would be greatly and tenderly loved. It may be truly said that she lived and died without enemy. All who knew her loved her, and those who knew her best and longest, loved her most.

Her last illness was brief. She only suffered a few days. She very soon sank under her sufferings, and became so feeble that she conversed but little. There was no dying testimony needed. Her Christian life bears abundant proof that she was ripe for heaven.

She leaves behind her five children, thirty-two grand children and ten great grand children to mourn her departure, and mourn they will, for four years she was in the habit of visiting around among her numerous descendants, and spending a few days or weeks with each in turn. These visits were hailed with peculiar delight, and each family felt itself honored and blest when it was its turn to receive a visit from Grandma, as nearly every one familiarly called her. Her pleasant face and kind words sent a fresh impulse of joy to every heart in the domestic circle. The babe would cease his prattle, the child forget his toys, the young people their mirth, and the older ones lay aside their business, to enjoy her visit and contribute to her enjoyment.

But now she rests with her Savior, where the good are “as the angels of God in Heaven.” C. Murchison

Lewistown, Feb. 28, 1871

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Ancestry.com. Public Member Trees. (Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006;)
   Database online.

   Record for Guilford Coward Simms

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Ancestry.com. OneWorldTree. (Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA;)
   Database online.

   Record for Reuben Coward Simms

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 Ancestry.com. Public Member Trees. (Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006;)
   Database online.

   Record for Frances Graves

4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} Ancestry.com. Public Member Trees. (Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006;)
   Database online.

   Record for Thomas Graves

5. ↑ ^5.0 5.1 Charles Morris and Elizabeth Morris. Morris, Charles Morris and Elizabeth. (Date: 1972;)
   Ross and Woods Family Tree.