Recently, I was performing more genealogical research on the Youngblood family and I located the obituary for Eliza Youngblood who died in Edgefield County, South Carolina in 1838.

Her obituary shows she was a woman of many strengths, especially her Christian Faith and should serve as an inspiration for us all. The following is her obituary:

Eliza Youngblood Obituary

from the Edgefield County, South Carolina newspaper – The Advertiser, Edgefield C.H., Thursday, May 17, 1838

OBITUARY

Died – On the 11th inst., at Edgefield C. H. Mrs. ELIZA YOUNGBLOOD, wife of Mr. Erasmus J. Youngblood, in the 35th year of her age.

Panegyrick upon the dead is so indiscriminate as to be almost unavoidably common-place, and perhaps useless. But, in the present instance, it would be doing injustice to the memory of the dead, and violence to the feelings of the living, to passby the deceased without one word to record her virtues.

Reserved and retiring in her manners, and exclusively domestic in her habits, she was known only to a small circle of friends and relatives. But by them she will long be remembered as the pride of her sex, and an example to her race. – To a mind by nature vigorous and masculine, and enriched by all the advantages of a finished education, was united a temper kind, affectionate and forgiving. But though in life she was good, it was in death that she was great. It was upon that mighty occasion that tries the soul of man – it was in the hour of death – that she displayed to an admiring circle, her wonderful superiority. Having been flattered by the fond delusion of friends, into the belief that she was recovering from a dangerous illness, she was suddenly apprised that her hour was at hand; then, without a second thought about herself, she begain to admonish her friends, as they anxiously gathered around her dying bed. Inspired by the grandeur of the subject, she continued without interruption for twelve hours, as her friends successively came to take their last adieu, to impress upon them, in the most fervid and eloquent strains, the truth, the value, the sublimity of the religion of Christ. Announcing, with a voice clear and firm, and an eye unmoistened by a tear, while all around were weeping in bitterness, the great and solemn truths of Christ and immortality, she presented a spectacle worthy of all admiration. In her death we saw how much mightier is faith than philosophy. In her death the infidel might have seen how a christian could die, and have been confounded by the sight.