Obituary of Susannah (Henkle) Shook

Susannah Shook "Mrs. Susannah Shook departed this life at the residence of her son, Sidney Shook, St. Clair County Illinois, on the 6th day of April, 1862, and the remains of earth are now mouldering in the dust with her husband Samuel Shook. This lady was born in Hardin County, Virginia in the year 1777 and immigrated to Illinois in the year 179- (7)? She lived 85 years, to witness the frontiers of Virginia, and all the coast, rising into a dense population and into a Christian and civilized community. Mrs. Shook experienced all the varieties, changes and troubles of a frontier life, and consequently she transmits to posterity the honorable and respected character of an ancient and worthy Pionner of Illinois. This lady was a resident of Illinois about 65 years, and almost sixty of the above long period of time she resided about three miles south east of Belleville. Almost half of the immigrants with whom this lady immigrated from Virginia to Illinois, died the first season after their arrival at the New Design Settlement, which was situated a few miles south of the present town of Waterloo, Monroe County, Illinois, and she bore her part of the sufferings sorrows and miseries of an infant colony in the midst of a wilderness, with the resignation and Christian fortitude of an American Lady." * "Mrs. Shook not only saw before her eyes the misery and waiting caused by death of so many of her friends and relations; but also experienced the hardships and the deprivations of a new and infant settlement, Turkey Hill,, where she last yielded up her spirit to the God who gave it to her, and her body to the mother earth that nourished her." "Mrs. Shook became a member of the Baptist Church about forty years before her death, and she enjoyed that earthly happiness for this long period of her life, in strict communion with God, which no other condition in life can afford equal to the enjoyment of an honest and sincere Christian. This lady was not a classic scholar, but she possessed that sound common sense which enabled her to perform with propriety and judgment the greatest duty that the Creator imposed on the human family, and that is; to raise her offspring in the fear of God, and to teach them the way to happiness by the councils and life of a pious mother. A mother has a responsible duty to perform, and the relations and friends of this lady may say "Well done, thou faithful servant of God." " Susannah is buried next to Samuel in the Green Mountain Cemetery, East of Belleville. - - - May 23rd 1862 Issue of the Belleville Weekly Advocate - - -

* Note: Susannah was NOT in St. Clair County in 1797 with the New Design Pioneers; she was not married until 1798, and did not come to St. Clair County until 1801.

© 2008 Wayne Hinton