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DEATH OF A PIONEER WOMAN Another of that noble band of pioneers of the great Snake River Valley has crossed the great divide and gone out into the silence, leaving a blessed memory of noble and kindly service to all who were so fortunat e as to bear her acquaintance A devoted wife and mother, loyal to her home, her religion, and unfailing to her friends, warm hearted, generous and hospitable, her home and purse were always open to the needy or distressed Since the death of her lamented husband eleven years ago, Mrs. Tautphaus has been in failing health and seemingly benefited by the balmy climate of California, she made her home with her daughter, Mrs. E. P. Henry at Long Beach for the last two years. Thirty years ago that piece of property known as "Tautphaus" park, and later "Reno" park, was a desert waste. Mr. C. E. Tautphaus and family left a beautiful home in California and settled there and with the help of the older girls, and what other help they could find, they smoothed the rugged fields, planted hundreds of trees, turned the streams, built canals, and created an artificial lake with high hopes of its being their home in their declining years. And let it be known that many a stout hearted quailed, when coming to this country thirty years ago and viewing the prospect awaiting the pioneer. The savages, the desert, the rattlesnake, the nerve racking duststorm that lurked to ambush the soldier of peace, not one in a thousand who has not experienced it can realize the texture of the intrepid nature that exhausts itself within the pioneer. Mrs. Tautphaus lived to see the shadows of the wilderness chased away. The soil has yielded up its grain, its fruits, its flowers, a great and generous whole-souled people have found rest where the pioneer blazed the trail and just now are bound together as never before in a great and common cause for humanity. This is sufficient earthly compensation. She smiled and fell asleep.There is--there must be--a reward in heaven for spirits such as these. May her dreamless rest be sweet and may God comfort the lonely hearts that are left. Mrs. Tautphaus was born in Ireland and was brought to America as a weeks old infant. She died at Long Beach, California, at the age of 77 years. The body was brought here and the burial services held this morning from the Catholic church. ---From the microfilmed Post Register dated December 25, 1917 |