Obituaries - Death Notices - Funeral Cards

November 25, 1922     Middletown Journal, Middletown, Ohio 

PASSED AWAY
Mrs. Harding of Excello Died at Her Residence Sunday
Mrs. Christine Harding
     After a long life devoted to her family, the church and its influences and the community in which she lived for more than a half century, a good mother passed to her eternal reward.
     With the dawn of the Sabbath day, Mrs. A. E. Harding at her home in Excello surrounded by those ever near and dear, laid down the burden of her life, her gentle spirit taking its flight to a more friendly world.
     The little village in which she lived and moved, mourns its loss. For though she has not been active in the world's affairs for years, the feeling that in the old home on the hill she was with them still, was ever an inspiration that threw around the Harding homestead a kindly reverence for one who through the years had been a good mother to the entire community.
 Her family, who have ever appreciated her noble qualities and with filial devotion paid reverence to her as the center from which radiated those influences for good that made them noble women and worthy men, will miss her parental advice. The vacant chair in the family circle will long awake tender memories of the many virtues of a good mother.
     They have the sympathy of a community of friends who kneel with them in sorrow at the bier of one that none knew but to love and esteem for her many kindly considerations, her Christian spirit, her noble aspirations in the years that are past and gone.
     Mrs. Christine Harding died at the old Harding Homestead in Excello Sunday morning, November 26, 1922, aged 86 years. She was born in Salzburg, Pennsylvania, December 16, 1835. She was the widow of A. E. Harding, deceased, the founder of the Harding Paper company, the first writing paper mill in the Miami Valley. Surviving their good mother are: Mrs. Allie Jones, Miss Elizabeth Harding, Mrs. Harry Engle and ex-congressman Eugene Harding of New York. She leaves also numerous grandchildren among them Howard and Dwight Jones, prominent in university athletics and a sister, Mrs. Greier, of this city.
     The funeral services will be held from the residence at 2 o'clock Tuesday afternoon. Rev. Mr. Sites, pastor of the First Baptist church with which she affiliated for years will conduct the services. Interment will be made in Woodside cemetery. No flowers.

January 19, 1945  Middletown Journal, Middletown, Ohio 

MISS ELIZABETH HARDING DIES MONDAY AT HOME IN EXCELLO
FUNERAL PLANNED WEDNESDAY
    Miss Elizabeth Harding, 73, member of a family that made the Miami Valley known as one of America's greatest paper-producing belts, and one of the city's charming women, died at the family residence at Excello at 1:25 P.M. Monday.
   Miss Harding suffered a stroke of paralysis a week ago, and death was not unexpected to her family and friends.
NATIVE OF ENGLAND
    The prominent club and church woman was a native of Shottermill, England, and was brought to this country when an infant. When she was 18 months old, her parents moved into this graceful old home on Route 4, on the hillside overlooking the factory founded in 1865 by her father, the late A. E. Harding and George Erwin, another of the city's pioneers. The firm now is known as the Harding-Jones Company in charge of her nephews, Clarence and Thomas E. Jones.
    In this fine old residence, Miss Harding and her sisters and brothers led sheltered lives in the quiet environment established by their devoutly religious parents. Meanwhile, her father was making a name for his family as the first manufacturer of writing paper produced west of the Alleghenies. He, with Erwin brought the art of paper making from England and for years the Harding-Erwin concern pioneered in the field throughout the middle west and growing western states to which its territory extended.
    Like others of her family, Miss Harding received her elementary education in the Amanda School. She always prided herself that she was a pupil of John Q. Baker, who later became a Middletown newspaper publisher. Her schooling was completed at Glendale College for Girls, no longer in exsistence, but at that time one of the exclusive institutions of learning in this part of country.
TURNED TO WRITING
    Of a literary turn of mind, Miss Harding devoted much of her time to writing and at the time of her death had completed a historical sketch on her father and was beginning work on the life of her mother. She was deeply interested in local, national, and international affairs and was avidly concerned with material that would improve her knowledge of cultural events.
    She was a member of the Current Events Club and the Middletown Garden Club the latter by virtue of her principal hobby which converted the grounds of the Harding home into a virtual showplace of that neighborhood. First Baptist Church was her religious center in which she was active in former years.
Miss Harding had one surviving sister and brother, Mrs. Harry Engle, who resided with her, and J. E. Harding, of New Haven, Conn.
    She had many nieces and nephews, some of whom are national figures -- the late Howard Jones, coach of the University of Southern California until his death more than a year ago; T. A. D. Jones, former coach at Yale; Maj. Gen. Forest Harding, prominently identified with Gen. MacArthur at New Guinea; Col. Justin Harding of Alaska; Clarence and Thomas Jones, officials of the Harding-Jones Paper Company, Miss Adelaide Engle at home, Mrs. Eugenia McLaughlin, Mrs. Janet Duane and Mrs. Elizabeth Tullis, this city, Miss Hazel Harding, Carl and Fred Harding of Franklin, and Mrs. Christine Sawyer, of Lima, Ohio.
    The Rev. Frank E. Johnston, pastor of the First Baptist Church will conduct the funeral Wednesday at the residence. Friends are asked to omit flowers. Burial will be in Woodside Cemetery.