Elenor-Broadwell-92473

Obituary

About the dawning of the morning yesterday, one of our oldest and most respected pioneer women folded her hands in peaceful sleep, and in a quiet hour passed to her rest and her reward. Mrs. Eleanor Taylor Broadwell was a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she was born Nov. 24, 1804. In that old colonial town, and the city of Boston, she spent her early life. She was married to Mr. James G. Edwards, the founder of the Hawkeye, in the city of Boston, September 14, 1826. Three years afterward they removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, and were among the founders of society in that now thriving and beautiful city. In the winter of 1837-8, they were among the early settlers of Fort Madison, then in Wisconsin Territory, where Mr. Edwards issued the first number of the Fort Madison Patriot, March 24, 1838. Consequent upon the division of the Wisconsin Territory of Iowa, with it’s capital at Burlington, Mr. Edwards moved his paper to this city, and published a specimen number under the name of the Burlington Patriot, December 13, 1838. The regular issue commenced June 6, 1839, under the name Iowa Patriot, to which the present name, the Hawkeye, was prefixed September 5, 1839. It was upon the suggestion of his wife that this name was given by Mr. Edwards to his paper.
Some years after the death of Mr. Edwards, which took place in this city, of cholera, in the summer of 1851, she was married to Mr. James M. Broadwell and has passed the evening of her life with usefulness, while her strength lasted, sustained and soothed by all her good principles and sentiments that grace and adorn and ennoble the character of excellent woman.
Mrs. Broadwell was one of the original members of the congregational church in this city. For many years she was the teacher of the infant class and was unwearied in her care and devotion to the thousands of little ones that in the course of thirty years she folded in the arms of her Christian love. From the beginning, she was an ardent laborer in the temperance reform and was one to plead both with those who were cold and with those who drank intoxicating liquors to do so no more. She was also an earnest advocate of the abolishment of slavery and was pronounced and outspoken in her views as an abolitionist even at a time when that term was applied as a measure of contempt. Her convictions were always remarkably strong and she was unhesitating in promulgating them. Always intent upon relieving sickness and trouble, she was a welcome visitor in the homes of sorrow and want, and in the early pioneer days, no home was more given to hospitality than hers. A few years since she was stricken with paralysis, and was long helpless and confined to her bed, but her strength has rallied during the past year. She was present at the commemoration of the pastor’s fortieth anniversary in the Congregational church, in April, in excellent spirits, and added much to the historic interest of that occasion. The day before her death she roade out and called with her characteristic sympathy to inquire for an old neighbor. Her end was the ideal of a long and useful life closed in venerable age without a pang of shudder, radiant with immortal hope.
In many respects her life was remarkable. She came to the West with Mr. Edwards, imbued, like him, with the idea of elevating and lettering the character and condition of the people of the frontier by publishing, among them, a paper devoted to their moral and religious interests. Mr. Edwards was a man of culture, refinement, and erudition, although his scholarly attainments were modified and picturesquely colored by the rude surroundings of his estate. He was always, however, a man of fine attainments and ability, and his ambitions and labors were shared and his successes likewise enjoyed by his faithful wife. While she possessed no fine qualities as a scholar, she read much and thought deeply and forcibly, and much of the delight of success which crowned her husband’s efforts were due to her loving and able assistance. She was a lady of many gifts and superior intelligence and could lend a hand in any direction where help was needed. She acquired skill as a compositor, and in many an emergency the regular appearance of the paper was due to her assistance.
Her vigorous mind brought her into communication with many of the abler spirits of those early days, Dr. Edward Beecher, afterward of Galesburg, Mr. Sturtevant, and other men, and women as well, who are now celebrated among the leaders in our civilization, were firm friends with her. That she should have chosen such a society and retained a position in it is not strange to those who knew her. She was quick at repartee, ready of speech, and always spoke to a purpose.
In her family, she was loved and respected. Her children all died in early infancy but her motherly nature could not remain contented and alone and so she sought to extend to the little ones of others affection her own might not receive. Her half-sister, Mrs. Kimball Prince, being left alone in the world she offered to her and her two little daughters a home, and they remained with her till grown and married, one becoming the first wife of Gen. Jno. M. Corse, and the other Mrs. James Love. She also took into her family a motherless little girl, who was known in our city while under her hospitable roof as Libbie Edwards. Some years later this lady married a young artist named Nourse, who died some time after. She subsequently married his cousin, also named Nourse, and after his death, which occurred twelve or fifteen years ago, she became the wife of Mr. Laidley, of San Francisco, and still resides in that city, her husband being the Portuguese consul at that point. Before her marriage and removal from our city, she was engaged in teaching in our city schools.
For a number of years Mr. and Mrs. Edwards occupied the large frame building on the northwest corner of Main and Court streets and she continued to reside there after her marriage to Mr. Bradwell until January 1867 when the building was destroyed by a midnight fire and with it nearly all the effects of the occupants, among which were all the books and papers accumulated by Mr. Edwards during his life. Her declining years were quietly spent in the structure which replaced this dwelling where she met her quiet circle of friends and held a daily pleasant communion with her favorite authors. Her mind remained perfectly clear, strong, and vigorous to the last and her death was so gentle and peaceful and so completely simulated a sweet falling into slumber that her husband, who was with her, knew not the moment when her life on earth found its close. Her fine, strong, Christian character and her life, fraught from beginning to end with deeds of usefulness and benevolence, made her hundreds of friends and hosts of acquaintances who will cherish their memories of her as they would of the visit of an angel to earth.