Melisa Spurlock Foster, widow of the late Dr. D. W. Foster, died at the residence of her son, Dr. Paul Foster, near Lawtell, at 9:15, Sept. 29, aged 79 years, 7 months and 24 days. The funeral cortege left Plaquemine Ridge Saturday the 30th at 1 P.M. and arrived at the Methodist Church in this town at 3 o’clock where the funeral services was conducted by Rev. Mr. Harper, who spoke feelingly of the Christian virtues of the deceased, when interment followed in the Protestant Cemetery, followed by many friends and relatives of the family.

Melisa Spurlock was born in Amite County, Mississippi, Feb. 8th, 1837. Married Dr. D. W. Foster in 1848; soon thereafter, they moved to Avoyelles Parish, La., where they lived a few years before moving to St. Landry, where they spent the remainder of their lives rearing a family of six children. Dr. Paul Foster and Mrs. J. G. Lawler of Opelousas and Mrs. J. A. Groves, Ernest and Abraham Foster of Sebastian Fla., survive her, Mrs. H. S. Johns having died several years ago. She also has a sister and brother and other relatives living in Avoyelles and Rapides Parishes, La.

In the loss of this venerable lady the community loses on of the grandest Christian characters in the Attakapas country, a true wife, a fond mother, a Christian neighbor, whose devotion to her religion was not a mere lip service, but translated into daily service that lasted not for a day, week, month or year, but all her life. If her service to her children and kindred may be measured by her service to those who had no particular claim save the common sisterhood of man then indeed it was immeasurable; no inconvenience, no danger nor fear of contagion could daunt this noble woman from carrying her ministration to the sick and needy; unostentatious, kind, never a frown but always an encouraging smile, her gentle ministration carried joy and comfort tot the stricken bedside and many a home outside those of her immediate family will miss the ministration. In a few more months she would have reached the allotted three score years and tenaccorded to human existence; it therefore may have been in the divine order of things that a life so useful should be removed. The ways of providence are inscrutable and beyond human ken; there is doubtless a purpose and not a mere chance when a saintly character takes the last journey to another world; the loss is not the emigrant’s but hose who remain to mourn; it is to them that the sympathy of the entire community goes. Time alone can mitigate the changed relation; the departure will accentuate the virtues of the departed. It is at least some little consolation to know that death was not premature and that it came gently as a ripened autumn leaf falling on the bosom of Mother Earth, its beautiful subdued tints reflecting the glory of the setting sun, reminding us, that “All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.”

Fortunate the family who in its mourning hours need fear no adverse criticism of its departed; who can point to the bier, not as a yawning chasm that leads to a death chamber of remorse for sins of flesh, but as a portal to everlasting life, where earthly virtues will receive a recognition and reward not always accorded here.

Hard as it may be to bid eternal farewell to our loved ones there is consolation in the thought that when:

“The Death Charge comes, Death is another life. We bow our heads at going out, we think and enter straight Another golden chamber of the King’s Larger than this we leave, and lovelier. And then in shadowy glimpses, disconnect, The story flower-like, closes its leaves. The Will of God is all in all. He Makes, Destroys, remakes, for His own pleasure, All.”

Note: the name and date of the newspaper in which this obit was written is unknown. Transcribed by Henry LeRoy “Hank” Johns III, October 2003.