Unruh, Karoline Weyand (1873-1959)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1960 Jan 14 p. 8

Birth date: 1873 Jul 27

text of obituary:

KAROLINE WEYAND UNRUH

Mother Karoline Weyand Unruh was born July 27, 1873 in the village Langenbach, Province Hessen-Nassau, Germany.

She was 14 when her mother passed away. Her father, Wilhelm August Weyand with his family, emigrated to the United States in 1893.

In 1899 she was baptized by Rev. Peter Balzer and accepted as a member of the Alexanderwohl Church.

She was joined in holy wedlock to our father, Peter P. Unruh, on June 25, 1905. In April 1912 a little girl, Agnes Boese, was taken into our parental home where she grew up. Two years after father’s death, which occurred on June 15, 1920, mother and Agnes moved to Lehigh, Kansas, where she had her membership transferred to the Mennonite church. She remained a faithful member there to the time of her departure.

Having had trouble with her eyes, she was taken to Marshalltown, Iowa in 1932 where she underwent surgery for the removal of a cataract and also because of glaucoma. The hoped-for help to restore her sight did not come. Instead she became totally blind within a short time. She bore this affliction without murmuring for 27 years.

Since she had always been a very active person and her other senses through the loss of sight became more acute, she performed many of the ordinary household duties very efficiently.

For 20 years, up to the time Agnes was married, they lived in Lehigh. She moved with her family to a farm near Greensburg, Kansas. Later she stayed for some time with her daughters in Goessel.

On Dec. 4, 1959 she was admitted as a guest to the Bethesda Home for the Aged where, with the exception of shorter periods of absence when ill at the hospital, she had been for the past 10 years. She appreciated the love shown her and the kind care given her there.

She suffered much through the years, but the last five months which she spent almost exclusively in bed were especially difficult for her. She longed to leave “this earthly tabernacle of the flesh.”

She loved music and she sang much. Many songs and Scripture passages which she had memorized she drew upon for comfort and strength in these difficult and trying days. The end came unexpectedly on Monday, Dec. 28 caused by a heart attack. She reached the age of 86 years, five months and one day.

We will miss her but are happy to know that she is released from all suffering and is at home in the mansions prepared by the Lord for his own.

She leaves one son, W. W. Unruh and wife, Martha; two daughters, Agnes Bartel and husband Arthur of Greensburg, and Marie E. Buhler of Goessel; four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, one sister, Mrs. Lena Kessler and a number of nephews and nieces.

Her husband, one daughter, Elizabeth, her parents, five brothers and three sisters preceded her in death.

— The Family.

The Mennonite obituary: 1960 Jan 26 p. 63