Obituaries - Death Notices - Funeral Cards

March, 1908  Middletown Daily News Signal, Middletown, Ohio

MRS. JULIA A. BANKER SLEEPS AWAY FROM LIFE
Dies on Farm She was Born on 87 Years Ago Just North of Poastown -- Mother of Harvey Banker
    Early Sunday morning ere the dawn had lightened the east, Mrs. Julia A. Banker, the aged mother of Harvey Banker, slept away out of life -- "she had another morn than ours."
    On the place she died on, the old Lucas farm north of Poastown, Mrs. Banker was born 87 years ago. She was born Julia A. Lucas and there was joy in that house on February 3, 1821, the day on which she came into this world of ours, which she brightened for all who knew her during the years of her long life. She has passed full of years and honor. In the natural course of life, she is dead. Her only surviving child, Harry, the well known farmer and good citizen of this county, has the great satisfaction of knowing that he did his full filial duty by the mother who bore him and loved him and watched tenderly his earlier and his later years. He has done his part nobly, and it were but fitting to praise a son for keeping so admirably the great Fifth commandment that is so often forgotten by the men of the younger generation in this land of ours. His days should be "long in the land."
For the past five years, or since a year after her husband, D.W. Banker, entered into his rest, Mrs. Banker had been practically helpless from the infirmities, physical and mental, of old age, and all through these years she had been carefully watched and tended by her son and his good wife.
    For only one short week were the shadows of death close about her. Even in this country of easy deaths of old people, there have been few such beautiful cases of enthanasia as this. For a week or two she had been merely "wearing awa like snow when it's thaw, wearing awa to the land of leal." Two of her three children were there to greet and welcome her. Such life as Julia Banker's and such an end to it form the materials for a beautiful poem.
    The funeral will be tomorrow afternoon, with the last earthly service in the old home of her birth and her death at 2 o'clock conducted by Rev. Mr. Williams of Urbana, Ohio, an old time pastor of Mrs. Banker when he ministered to the church near her home. The burial will be in Mount Pleasant cemetery at Poastown, the "God's Acre" she knew so well where her husband and children have rested.
    As said, Julia A. Banker was born on February 3, 1821, on the farm of her father, Samuel L. Lucas, just north of Poastown, where she lived all her life as maiden and wife and mother. Sixty-six years ago she and D. W. Banker were married. Three children were born to them, and of these Harvey alone survives the fond mother. By him and his wife and their young children the memory of his mother will be long green. She did her full duty in life, and none can do more. To the friends not of her immediate family who knew and loved her she was loyal and ever helpful. She is at peace, well won, and the memory of her gentle life will be a benediction to her son and his children.