SHE WAS HOMESICK
UNTIMELY DEATH OF MRS. CHAS. HAAS
LAST FRIDAY MORNING NORTH OF LONGWOODHAD LIVED HERE
ONLY FOUR MONTHS
THE FUNERAL SUNDAY.

Died from homesickness. Such may be and no doubt is the reason written in the great book to be opened at the last great day for the sad death of Mrs. Chas. Haas of Longwood which occurred at 11 o'clock last Friday morning.

Deceased was married but four months ago, this being her second marriage, he first husband being dead. Mr. Haas, she had known since girlhood, he having worked for her father before she was married the first time. All that a husband could do or be, she realized during the past four months and the home life of Mr. and Mrs. Haas seemed ideal.

But she had come to a new country and among new faces, from Waterloo, Iowa. Here, while she had the pleasures of a good home and the company of a bright, loving daughter by her first husband, she missed the warm friends and kind neighbors she had been used to seeing every now and then. Added to this was the homesickness of her daughter, Florence, nine years old, who missed her friends often as much or more than her mother. Thus it was a homesick time and many of them for both. The sight of the daughter crying for her old friends and her longings to be back among the familiar scenes of Iowa only added to the same feelings on the part of the mother.

Realizing the situation, the husband urged his wife to go back for a visit until she should feel more cheerful and contented here, but this she disliked to do, seeming to think it would look childish on her part. She was likewise urged by her sister who lives in Iowa to do as her husband urged upon her, but with the same results.

Scarcely a week before her death her pastor, Rev. Presnall called on the family and remained for dinner and to him she remarked on how homesick she and Florence were. Thus the malady, as it may be called, kept working on her until her mind became affected and control of herself seemed to be lost as is evidenced by a note she had written probably just before her death. In this she referred to her head being queer, possessed of strange fancies, etc.

At eleven o'clock Friday morning, June 23, Mrs. Haas' body was found in the barn hanging to a rope. Thus her lonesomeness and homesickness resulted. The funeral was held from the home at nine Sunday morning, Rev. C. O Presnall officiating. The body was taken back to Waterloo, Iowa, for burial, accompanied by the stricken husband and a sister from Iowa.

The tragic event casts a gloom over the entire community, which shares with the stricken ones the sorrow it brings. Deceased was thirty-two years of age and was known as of gentle, refined character.

Source: Greenwood, Gleaner 6/29/1905.