The following article appeared in the Gospel Advocate on Thursday, September 5, 1895 and was about Paulona Jane Northern. John H. Davis wrote the sketch.
Northern
The subject of this sketch Mrs. Paulona Jane Northern, wife of Thomas Y. Northern, Sr., on the 7th instant quietly and peacefully “passed away,” at her home, after a brief illness. She was the oldest daughter of Dr. Smith, of Cainesville, Wilson County, (Tennessee) and was born August 24, 1825, and acknowledged Christ, her personal Savior, at the age of 17 years, and joined the Christian Church, of which she was an exemplary member until death.
She was married October 16, 1842. In this relation she lived for near fifty-three years, and was the mother of thirteen children, three of whom died in infancy, leaving ten others who still survive her, all having attained majority but two – a son and daughter – and have settled mostly in this vicinity, and are clever enterprising, trustworthy citizens.
At the outbreak of the late civil war husband and family were possessed of a good estate acquired by frugality and industrious habits, but like many citizens, war, with its usual destruction, deprived them of hard-wrought earnings, and left them without the means of restitution save an unconquered determination to struggle against misfortune. With unabated zeal, without murmuring, Mrs. Northern accepted the new situation undaunted, realizing the fact that “life is real, it is earnest:” and, with this motto ever in mind, discharged every incumbent duty for near seventy years, until death’s reaper gathered her as a ripe sheaf ready for the harvest, and transported her spirit to the “realms beyond.”
Truly, her life was a model for imitation. As a neighbor and friend, she was always kind, obliging, and true. As a wife, she was devoted in her love and untiring in every effort to render home earth’s greatest treasure, and as a temporal and Christian mother her desires for the family welfare were unmeasured by language or the light of years. Hereafter about the hearthstone will be one vacant chair.
A sympathizing community will meet as of yore, but “miss her.” An aged husband is bowed in grief, sons and daughters are in mourning, but none sorrow without hope, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”