Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1903 — His Last Thoughts Were Of His Mother. [ARTICLE]

His Last Thoughts Were Of His Mother.

. The following regarding tit death of'Wilbert R. MichaelAs's repub'ished from the Fargo, N Dak., Daily Republican, of Nov 26th. by request. With one leg severed completely, his body bruised and mangled and his soul at the threshold of eternity, W. R. Michaels, the young brakeman who met death on the N. P railway at Wheatland, yes terday morning, turned to those surrounding him and forgetting his awful pain, said !in a husky voice: "Tell mother that I died thinking of her.” ; Bravely he spoke these few brief words, with eyes strangely appealing lo his auditors He turned and buried his face in his pillow and when kindly hands reverses the head he had passed to the dreamless silence of the tongueless dust.

What more magnificent exemplification of. a son’s affection for a mother could be made? In thedarkness of death his mother stood as his star of hope and consola tion—his angel and listening love could almost hear the rustle of a wing. The brave, strong-hearted men, accustomed to scenes of a kindred character, turned in silence from the cold inanimate form There were thoughts evidently of other far away homes, of other kind faced mothers, whose brows are shaded by the lustre of silvery tresses, and whose thoughts arr ever with the "boy.” , At th crucial hour man mayv communesilently with his inker, bnt when abroad and alone in the cold un feeling wqrUi, the mother in In - parting words is the worshiping qu-en upon eternity's throne, h. which the hand is extended IV r

sympathy and consolation: of per chance, if she has passed to t'.i. other shore, to whom, inadverte fit - ly the weary turn in that ghu promise of reunion. The body of this unfortun .U young omU), mangled and cold ii death, lifts been sent back to tju aged mother at Rensselaer, lial, where the remains will be laid to rest. * Tho coroner’s jury found tua-t death was the result of an accident without attaching the responsib - ly-