Obituary

Smith - In Buffalo, N.Y., Dec 9th, Mrs Eliza W. Smith, aged 77 years. Deceased was the mother of Mrs. O.L. Williams, formerly of this city. The remains were brought to Meadville Monday for burial. Interment in Greendale cemetery.

Biography by Albert L Williams

Grandmother Eliza was tall and slender with jet-black hair and eyes. Although she as 16 years his junior, she wore the bifurcated garment of authority. She was a splendid housekeeper, exceedingly frugal, a bit of a vixen, and would lend local color to many a novel. She had bitter antipathies mixt in with religious scruples. Card playing, novel reading, theater going, dancing, and Sabbath breaking were the pivotal points of her creed. The faces on a pack of cards were all pictures of devils to whom the player had staked and lost his soul. If ever she found a deck its destruction was terrible. Her fingers never touched a card, but she would gather them up in the tongs and drop them into the fire with such a scathing castigation that it would take the hide right off the evildoer. Her parlor was a ritualistic room, it must never be entered save for weddings, funerals, pastoral calls, and other comparable events. The shutters must always be closed; the carpet must not be rocked upon. Yet let no man say that the room did us no good. It ministered to family standing and family pride, and, judged by the standards of the time and locality, it was some room. Yet think not that Grandmother lacked her amiable side. She had a sense of humor, she was the best playmate I had, and a dear, good woman in many ways.