Mary continued on the farm for many years before moving to live with her daughter, Sarah (born 1836) and son-in-law Jacob Irons (born 1832) in Congerville. Her last three years of life were spent with her son, Andrew, in Danvers. She died on April 1, 1900 at age '89 y. 10 m. and 11 d.' and is buried next to her husband in the Gilston Cemetery near the Old State Road in Dry Grove Township. This was originally called the Christian Church Cemetery and a church was located there until about 1900 when it was put on logs and rolled several miles away where it eventually fell into disrepair, was used as a storage shed, and finally destroyed. The oldest stone is 1850 and the latest is 1900, Mary's stone. In the cemetery are reportedly 73 graves of which about 29 markers are left. This cemetery has been neglected, vandalized and stolen from numerous times over the years but was restored and stones reset by the Dry Grove Township in which it is located. The Township now regularly maintains this small cemetery. According to a neighbor who lives nearby and often visited the cemetery as a child, the graveyard was once covered in lily-of-the-valley which he used to pick and present to his mother as bouquets, a memory he recounted as his eyes began to mist, remembering the past. The cemetery presently is surrounded by a soybean field. Along with Cornelius and Mary Barbara's stones is a now illegible stone, probably one of their babies. It is most fortunate that the two Bess stones remain clearly legible.

Although family history reported the Gilston Cemetery was originally known as the United Brethren Cemetery, this was apparently in error as the United Brethren Cemetery is abandoned, with no gravestones or markers remaining. This cemetery was also known as the Christian Church Cemetery.

NOTE: The surname on the markers says "Bess" but the name has evolved to the present-day "Best".