Nancy Manila Hood Submitted by Terry Jackson The Southern Democrat Oneonta, Alabama 10-24-1907 Mrs. Hood Dead Mrs. Nancy Manila Hood, widow of the late Andrew Hood, died at the home of J.A. Honea in Blountsville, Oct. 18, aged 79 years. Mrs. Hood was a faithful member of the Primitive Baptist church and one of the old land marks of the county. All the care and love that an anxious household could devise for her comfort were brought into play but the fiat of Him who rules our incoming and outgoing had been issued and after a brief struggle the sufferer's spirit took its flight to that home the christian believes is the fulfillment of the life everlasting. She ran the journey of her life in 79 years. It is a path marked with deeds of kindness and cheerfulness. Flowers not thorns, sunshine not shadow, did she scatter everywhere. With these she was lavish. Truth was the inspiration of her life and by kindness she exemplified its great worth. Was not her life full of Godlikeness? And there was reason for this. She sought the pearl of the great price and made it chief among the jewels of her youthful hopes. The intervening years have been full of consistent plain and wise action. This was the fountain of the maturity of the character. therefore we mourn, but not without promise. Through the gloom there comes back a bright beam of sunshine. Through the mists which gather we hear the tumult and the roar as of Niagara, but her God hath set the bow of His promise. He leaves us not alone in the presence of the unknown. Poet nor artist has ever been able to portray the grave in colors of brightness and beauty. Bryant, in the "Hymn of Death" could not make the subject beautiful; and yet the cemetery with its marble and its dead, the chair that has no occupant, the fancied echo of the silent voice, and the vacant place in the home and social life, are mellowing and uplifting in their influence. They bring the best of human nature into fulness of vigor, crowding back the selfishness and imperiousness of men and impressing them with the duty of recognition of the value of friendship. It is the gloom of the church-yard that reveals to us more clearly the beauty of life. It is the broken ties at the grave that prompts us to a fuller appreciation of the tenderness of the ties that are not yet broken' and so while we mourn the loss of our dead we may rejoice that there is no cloud so dark that there is no light behind it, no sorrow so poignant that there is not a balm for the would it inflicts. "So He giveth His beloved sleep." Her children and her grandchildren shall rise up and call her blessed. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. S.C. Allgood at the Hood Cemetery near Royal where the remains were laid to rest.