WATSON, Charlotte Morton – (d. 1869)
A Beautiful Tribute to a Noble Woman
A good obituary is a very rare thing, among the multitudinous attempts, even when the life of the subject of the memoir has furnished the pen with facts as beautiful as the thoughts of angels. The following obituary we copy from the Nashville Banner. It was written by one, evidently, who not only was acquainted with Mrs. WATSON, but having a kindred spirit, knew her real worth;
On the morning of the 4th of August, 1869, at the resident of Mrs. Mary E. SIMS, in the town of Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee, Charlotte Morton WATSON departed this life, leaving her husband Judge Samuel WATSON, and four children. Mrs. WATSON was a daughter of the late Marcus MORTON, ex-Governor of the State of Massachussetts, and aged, at her death, some fifty years. A sincere Christian in word and deed, she became, some time since, a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and of which she was an active, earnest and useful member until it pleased the Most High Priest to remove her into closer communion with Himself. Directly after her marriage with Judge WATSON, she, identifying her destiny with the fortunes of her husband, became a resident of the State of Tennessee. With this people she has been kindred in feeling, in sympathy and in fortune ever since.
They who were so blessed as to know her valued her for those graces of person and mind and disposition which when combined, make the perfect woman. Of a temperament gentle, amiable and courteous, with a mind cultivated and well-balanced, united to an attractive person, she was loved by the young, esteemed by those her own age, and favored by those her superiors in years. She was an ornament to society, a pillar to the Church and an angel of light and love to her household. To each, how great the loss! but more especially to that bereaved household. The husband will lose the patient kindness and loving affection of his most unselfish companion and counselor, whose wit and whose caution have for years guided and aided him, and whose cheerful smiles and unfailing devotion have been ever with him, ‘making each sorrow less, each joy greater,’ through the spring and summer of life, and until the harvest time has come and gone, and until the winter is now upon him, all alone. The children will lose the love of a mother – a mother who entered into full companionship with their joys and griefs – whose love compassed them with kindness most rare and sweet.
Mrs. WATSON was so tender in her anxiety to avoid giving annoyance or trouble, or seeming to do so; so solicitous to lighten the labors of life to others, that she avoided making known the nature and severity of her struggle with the disease to which she at last yielded. And though she had been sick for weeks, not until within a few hours of her death did she abandon the social duties of life. She had lived, not for herself, but for others, and so she died! Unexpected and sudden was the call of the messenger, but the beauty of light is never lost, and, though the disembodied spirit doth now illumine another world the reflection of its loveliness doth now, and will always, brighten the memory and love of those who knew Charlotte Morton WATSON. God preserve those whom she loved, that they may join her, ‘when life’s fitful fever is over,’ in that bright, pure world where she now and forever dwelleth. — A Friend. Columbia, Tenn. August 7, 1869.
The Columbia herald. (Columbia, Tenn.), 20 Aug. 1869. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85033386/1869-08-20/ed-1/seq-3/>