John Schenck Obituary

From the Signs of the Times


Elder John Schenck, of Springdale, Leavenworth Co., Kansas, departed this life May 10th, at twenty minutes past twelve, P.M., of ulcer or cancer of the stomach, after a long time being confined to the house and finally to his bed.

Our dear brother died as it were an inch at a time, but he bore his afflictions with great fortitude. He was born in Butler Co. Ohio, Dec. 21st, 1823, and moved to Marion County, Indiana, where he married Mary Furnas, March 13th, 1851. After the death of his first wife he married Matilda Schooler, of Boone County, August 26th, 1870, after which he moved to Leavenworth County, Kansas. After the death of his second wife he married Mary Jane VanPelt, June 11th, 1876. He joined the Old School Baptists in Indiana, in 1860, on the fourth Saturday in March and was baptized by Elder Thomas Swiggert. It is due to the cause of truth to state that when our beloved brother Schenck came to Kansas he was told that I and the whole Kansas Association were Beebeites, Dudleyites, Johsonites, and such names; and to crown the whole matter and make him a complete captive to their craft, represented us as Parkerites, soul-sleepers, saying there was nothing done for the old man &c. But our beloved brother stood alone until he was satisfied, and then joined Big Walnut Creek Church, where he was licensed and ordained, and when he died was of the Kansas Association. He died in full triumph of the doctrine he preached.

Some three or four weeks before he died he sent for the writer and requested him to send a communication he had previously written to the Signs of the Times for publication, and write his obituary for the same, and speak on the occasion of his funeral. When the physician told him he could not get well, instead of being frightened, he sang the hymn "O land of rest, &c . . . and closed his eyes in death. After he had ceased to breathe he opened his eyes, gazed upon his family and then closed them as before. This was repeated several times after he ceased to breathe, and then he fell asleep, never again to awake until the last trump shall sound. He was taken, by his special request, to the Springdale meetinghouse, for the writer to speak on the occasion, which he tried to do from these words: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

He leaves his third wife, ten children, four step-children and a number of relatives and friends to mourn their loss; but we believe he has gone to that house "not made with hands eternal in the heavens."

May 12th, 1878Wm. F. Jones

Easton, Kansas