Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1920 — OBITUARY [ARTICLE]

OBITUARY

Frances Elizabeth Coates was the eldest child of Sophia Adeline and Elisha Harris Coates and was born in Portage county, Ohio, on Octobet 19, 1836, passing into the Great Beyond on October 5, 1920, only fourteen days before her 84th birthday. In 1840 her father’s family moved to Hancock county, Ohio, where she grew to womanhood. She was educated in the schools of that county, and in Utica, New York, and Findlay, Ohio, and after teaching a few terms of school she was married on March 1, 1854, to William Austin Hopkins. They established a home on a farm near Leipsic, Ohio, where three of their children were born —a daughter and a son dying in infancy. In 1864 they moved to Jasper county, Ind., and for a few years lived on farms near Rensselaer, but moved to Goodland in 1871, where they remained until 1885, then went to Garden City, Kansas. In 1896 they returned to Renselaer to make a permanent home, and where Mr. Hopkins passed away on August 26, 1908. The Second daughter grew to womanhood in Goodland, where she was married to John L. Cooke and died on September 14, 1885. Mrs. Hopkins joined the Methodist Episcopal church when a young girl, and for many years was a very active and energetic worker in various branches of the church work, and was a charter member of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Goodland church. She was a member of the Eastern Star Chapter and the Lidies’ Literary Societies in the various towns in which she lived. Always progressive and having an interest in the affairs of the day. Besides the two daughters she leaves four grand children, a sister and many other close relatives and friends who will greatly miss her, hut will ever remember her love and devotion.