RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: My Ancestral Lineage

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From Mary Marcin - Apr 15 , 2005

Obit Ma ry Ann Hamilton Boicourt

It was a remarkable life t hat closed when Mrs. Boicourt passed away at the
home of her daughter, Mrs. Caleb Carver near Moline March 11, 1910.

Born May 15, 1804 and bein g of well-preserved faculties.   In her remarkable
vigorous mind many events were memories that in the minds of most of us a re
facts learned from the pages of history. Her life had begun when this rep ublic
was young; she had observed all of its wonderful development.   ; Her maiden
name was Mary Ann Hamilton; her native place was Harrison County, Virgini a,
amid the mountains.   There people lived simple healthy lives a nd there is where
Mrs. Boicourt laid the physical foundation of her remarkable long life an d
developed the mental and spiritual forces that made her a remarkable
personality that she was.   Railroads were unknown in those day s, the telegraph
and telephone were later inventions, even wagon roads had not penetrate d the
mountains which were her home, bridle paths were the only means of
communication among the people.   People went on foot; they liv ed mostly from
the resources of the soil near at hand.   They spun the wool an d flax to make
their clothes.   Mrs. Boicourt’s life was filled with thes e occupations.   She said
she walked twenty miles one time to attend a Methodist Camp Meeting.

At the age of twenty she m oved to Indiana, when that country was a wilderness.
Four years later she married Thomas Boicourt. They followed t he frontier into
Illinois and Iowa and in her late widowhood came to Moline Kansas to mak e her
home with her daughter thirteen years ago.

The family was a patrioti c one and gave three sons to serve the Union cause in
the Civil War. Mrs. Boicourt was deeply religious in characte r and had great
influence in building up Christianity in the regions where she lived. 0; Two of her
sons and four of her grandsons inspired by her pious life entered the Met hodist
ministry. The most suitable celebration of her one hundredt h birthday was a
religious service in which she gave her experience and recited some of he
hymns of her girlhood days when hymnbooks were not in the hands of each
worshipper and they had to depend on their memories for the words they sa ng.
She could recite many of these hymns and would do so for her visitors eve n in
her last days.

Mrs. Boicourt said that wh at impressed her most in her long life was the many
inventions that men had devised in her lifetime which she thought were mo re
than had ever been in all of the time preceding.   In her child hood the best
wagon in the region of her home was a long affair high at the ends and lo w in the
middle like old-fashioned canoes.   Even In the   lev el country they used clumsy
coaches and carryalls.   She lived to see palatial railway trai ns, trolley cars,
automobiles and to hear of airships gliding through the air.   ; In her youth the best
lights for houses were tallow dip candles. In her time the kerosene lamp , the
gasoline lamp, gas burners, and the wonderful electric lights had been ev olved.
She was right in saying that more inventions have come in her day than be fore.

She liv ed in Illinois at the time of when Lincoln campaigns were made and
remembered many incidents connected with them.

Most of he history is conc erned with events that have taken place while she
lived. She was identified with what was good and what force s made for the
betterment of the country and the improvement of the people in it.

    Many o f her kinsmen were long lived.   The daughter with whom she liv ed is
eighty.   Her sister died a few weeks ago at the age of ninety- two.   She was the
mother of six sons, two of whom are now living Rev. James Boicourt whose
home is in Texas and Edward who lives in Nebraska.   She had nu merous
grandchildren.   Fifty people called her great grandmother an d she had twenty-
three great-great grandchildren.   All the people of this commu nity felt a personal
interest in her and will miss her now that she is gone.