Raymond N. Bee, an only son of Nehemiah and Celina Bee, was the second of the family of three children and was born June 27, 1864, at Berea,W. Va., and died at North Loup, Neb., September 19, 1911.
The parents moved to the vicinity of Alden, Minn., when Raymond was a babe of only 17 months. Twelve years later, in the fall of 1877, the family came to North Loup, making the trip from Grand Island by ox team.
At the age of twenty-one he went to Alfred, N. Y., where he attended college for almost two years.
On October 22, 1896, he was married to Jennie Loofbourrow to which union were born four sons who died in infancy, and one daughter, Esther, who survives him.
When only a lad of nine, he with twenty-four others, entered the waters of Belle Clark's Lake near Alden, after the ice was removed, and received baptism by Rev. J. E. N. Bacchus. After the baptismal service the candidates went to the schoolhouse, where the meetings were held, and received the right hand of fellowship from the Carlston Seventh Day Baptist Church. Since his removal to North Loup he has held his membership with this church, of which he has been a faithful member. He has served in many ways and was at the time of his death a teacher in the Sabbath school and a beloved deacon of the church. He was a man of deep convictions, a man respected and loved by all, a man who will be missed in the community for what he was and what he did.
He leaves to mourn his loss, his wife, his daughter Esther, and a nephew, Wade Loofbourrow, who, since the death of his mother, when he was six months old, has made his home with them; he leaves also his only remaining sister Mrs. Jennie Clement, the elder sister Emma, having died here at North Loup forty years ago. Many other relatives and a host of friends feel the loss that comes to us in his going.
Funeral services were held at the church on the afternoon of September 21, conducted by his pastor, assisted by Rev. K. H. Clifton, and burial was made in the North Loup Cemetery. H. L. P.
