Mrs. Rebecca Cottrell was born at Alfred, N. Y., May 18, 1836 and died at Milton Junction, Wis., February 24, 1920, being eighty-three years, nine months and six days old.
Rebecca was the youngest child in a family of four children born to George and Diana Macomber Burdick.
When she was but six years of age she came with her family to Wisconsin and settled on a farm in the town of Lima. This was in the pioneer days when the country was but thinly settled and some ten years before the Railroad was pushed through from Milwaukee. Accustomed to simple ways of life, as well as the hardships of those pioneer days, she wove into her life many of those sterling qualities which are all too rare in the life of today.
On November 28, 1867 Miss Rebecca Burdick was united in marriage to Thomas Cottrell by the Rev. Darwin E. Maxson. In this union she became the step mother of Mr. Cottrell's two children by a former wife, Ormanzo Cottrell, a well known citizen of this town for many years and Mrs. Henry Crandall of Milton, both of whom are deceased; and the mother of two children, Lorena, who became the wife of Rev. O. S. Mills and died April 18, 1918 and Eldon, who is left alone to mourn the death of his mother. Mr. Cottrell died in April 18, 1892. As a bride she went to the farm in which she has always lived and in which she died.
On August 23, 1856 she was baptized and united with the Milton Seventh Day Baptist church but when the Milton Junction Seventh Day Baptist church was organized in 1876 she became one of the constituent members and has remained a faithful and honored member to the time of her death. We record with regret the passing of these sturdy pioneers for we are reminded that it was their unconquerable faith, their steadfastness of purpose, their sacrificing labors that built churches, founded schools, and gave to us many other blessings of a christian civilization for which we ought to be grateful. Truly, other men have labored and we have entered into their labors.
Besides those qualities already mentioned, Mrs. Cottrell was a woman of refined tastes possessing a keen appreciation of the real values of life. She not only believed, but acted upon that belief that 'a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things he possesses,' but in those Christian virtues that make the life sweet, gentle and lovable. She lived the life of prayer with the open Bible, looking unto Him who was the author and perfector of her faith. Like Paul of old, she had fought the good fight and kept the faith.
The four children of which Mrs. Cottrell was the youngest all lived until Mrs. Cottrell was past eighty and then died in order of their ages.
Funeral services were conducted by her pastor, Rev. Edgar D. Van Horn, February 26, from her late home and the Milton Junction S. D. B. Church and the body was laid to rest in the Milton Junction Cemetery. Appropriate music was beautifully rendered by Mrs. Edward Hull and Miss Marian Coon.
