Mary Elizabeth O'Connell (nee Shea) : Short Biography

Obituary says:  "Elizabeth Shea was born in County Kerry, Ireland, about ninety years ago, and died Jan 19th, 1915, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. John Donnelly, of the town of Salem, Pierce Country, of the infirmities of old age.  At the age of twenty-five, she came to America and settled at Lowell, Mass., working in the woollen mills there until her marriage to Maurice O’Connell, some two years later. To them were born two children at that place, one of them dying in infancy; later they moved to Hartford, Wis., where they lived until they came to Pierce Co. about forty-six years ago, and settled on a heavily timbered farm in the town of El Paso, where she lived continually up to five years ago, when occurred the death of the oldest son, Maurice, with whom she made her home on the old homestead.  It became necessary for her to move away from there, and she has since made her home with her daughter Margaret, whom she was with at the time of her death.
... [Like other] settlers she suffered all the privations of the earlier days, and more than some, as her husband was an invalid and lived but two years after coming to Pierce Co., leaving her with a large family to support from the proceeds of but three acres of land, which was all that was cleared on the farm at the time of his death.  She was a confirmed invalid, and a great sufferer for the past thirty-four years; part of that time she had to spend in bed, but [she] bore her sufferings with the greatest patience and Christian fortitude, trying at all times to do as much good as she could, and make as little work and care for others as was possible.  No better proof could be given of her gentleness and patience than the members of the family with whom she has lived the past four years and six months can say they never heard her utter a harsh or impatient word in all that time.
Although an invalid and so aged, she still kept her memory and mental faculties as clear as a young person. She could recall incidents back to her childhood days. Until about a month before her death, she used to sit up a part of each day.  She was the mother of eight children, six of whom survive her, with twenty-seven grand-children and four great-grand-children.  Her families were all present at her death and burial except one daughter, Mrs. P.H. Donnelly, of Sherwood, Oregon. She was buried from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church at El Paso, of which she was a devoted member all her life, Rev. Bestcha officiating, and laid to rest in the cemetery there.  Six of her grandsons acted as pall bearers.
Card of Thanks - We desire to express our thanks to all those who assisted us at the death and burial of our dear old mother.  Mrs. John Donnelly, Mrs. George Kane, Mrs. T. A. Fitzgerald, Mike O’Connell, J.L. O’Connell."  [Thursday, February 18, 1915, El Paso, Pierce County, WI -- Death notice and obituary as published in the local newspaper.]