Hancock County Historical Society Siegfried XIX
Page 290W. W. Murtland Died
While At Work
In FieldThursday afternoon, September 3, the entire community was shocked and saddened by the news of the very sudden death of W. Wallace Murtland at the Morris Yetter farm two miles east of Fountain Green. The deceased was in seemingly good health when he left his home in the morning preparatory to helping Mr. Yetter for the day.
Wallace Murtland was a man, an example of whom the entire community may be proud to emulate. He was richly endowed with a supreme sense of honor, justice and right. In order that his word of honor might be safe he often subjected himself to disadvantages.
His noble heart has ceased to beat and his friendship and kindly disposition to all comers has been cut off forever, but no one will ever forget his unselfish nature and his example of honest deeds.
William Wallace Murtland was born at Fountain Green, Illinois, Aug. 17, 1874, and departed this life Sept. 3, 1936, aged 62 years and 16 days. He was the youngest child of Alexander and Frances Freer Murtland and was born at the old homestead where he was living at the time of his death.
He was preceded in death by his parents, five sisters, Mrs. Margaret Barr and Mrs. Ella Dorothy of Aledo, Ill.; Mrs. Ida Spangler and Mrs. Frances Spangler of Fountain Green; Mrs. Kate Hobart of Kansas City, Mo., and also two brothers, Frankie, who died in infancy and R. B. who was the only brother Wallace ever knew. Two sisters, Mrs. Mary McDonald of near Burnside, Ill., and Mrs. Adda Champlin of Fountain Green with the wife and an only child, William, and a large number of nieces and nephews survive to carry on until the Great Commander gives the summons to the eternal life in the Great Beyond.
During the time of Wallace's teaching at Burnside, Ill., a neighbor, Mr. W. Thompson, died leaving a little fatherless girl less than five years old who immediately adopted Mr. and Mrs. Murtland as foster parents, calling them "Daddy and Mammy" Murtland and was looked upon by them as a daughter. This little girl has grown and is now Mrs. Jessie Thompson Ogilvie of Carthage, Ill., who mourns the death of Mr. Murtland as a daughter does a father.
On July 24, 1901, he was united in marriage to Maude Alton who was his first and only sweetheart and this bond of love has continued through their married life enriched by the birth of a son, William.
During his teaching career he gave thirty-six of the best years of his life to the boys and girls of Illinois, beginning as a country school teacher, advancing to principal and later to superintendent of schools, spending all of his life in the surrounding country except during the time employed in the schools of Henderson, Kane and Will Counties. He spent four years in Carthage working at his trade as jeweler with Mr. Duane Berry and has continued that work since then as an avocation.
While just entering into young manhood, he accepted Christ as his Savior and united with the Presbyterian Church of Fountain Green. Later on while a resident of Carthage he transferred his membership to the Presbyterian Church of that city. He was active in church work, as a teacher, as a member of the choir and as a musician in the orchestra of the church. While a teacher at Media, Ill., he worked with Rev. Cross in consolidating the churches of that community and was elected president of the Community Men's Bible Class at that place.
Wallace's interest in music was shown in various ways. When the band of Fountain Green was organized he became one of the charter members and played an instrument in this organization until it was disbanded a number of years later.
After the services at the church, the body, carried very tenderly by Messers Charles, Joe, Arthur, John and Harry Spangler and Clarence Barr, nephews of deceased, was laid to rest in Fountain Green cemetery, one-half mile north of town.
