From Newspaper: Times March 21, 1889

Submitted by Carla Dunlap Krehbiel.  Thank you, Carla!

Gone To Rest

        Died at her residence in this country, Mrs. John Hayes at 3 O'Clock PM, on March 7th, 1889.

        Mrs. Ann Hayes was the daughter of John and Sophia Townsend and was born July 24, 1824, five miles southwest of McLeansboro on the old homestead which was settled by her parents in an early day, while the state was still a territory. Mrs. Hayes lived her whole life on the farm upon which she was born. She raised a family of ten children, all of whom are living except one, and all of whom were with her during her last illness except a son who is in  Missouri, to administer her wants and mourn her loss.

        She was the oldest person in the county who had lived a whole life where they had been born and reared. On the eleventh of July 1841 the deceased was married to Mr. John Hayes, with whom she lived a happy and prosperous life for nearly half a century, and whom together with her children leaves to mourn her death.

        Mrs. Hayes was an industrious and honorable woman and was loved and respected by all who knew her. In her younger days she made a profession of religion but had never attached herself to any church. She was a believer of the scripture and always had a strong religious convictions and high regard for the cause.

        She was taken dangerously ill on February 26th with pneumonia, which resulted in her death. She was conscious most of the time and only a short time before she passed away, in speaking about her future, she said she fetal right. And now that she has passed the turbed waters of the river of death, may we her survivors with Christian resignation hope to meet her on the eternal shores in the realms of light and immortality. May we realize that the mercies of God are unlimited and in the language of the poet: