Sarah (Sallie) Clayton Turner

• General Notes
  • Obituary:
    Pierce - Mrs. Sarah Clayton Pierce (nee Turner) was born June 8, 1899, was converted and joined the Methodist church at Sparta, Ga., when she was ? twelve years of age; was married to Mr. Lovick Pierce, the only son of Bishop George F. Pierce, November 27, 1860, and died at Washington D. C., April 19, 1900. She wsa the mother of ten children, five sons and five daughters. Three daughters and two sons went in advance of her to the other land, and an equal number wait with the bereaved father to join her after awhile. It was the happy fortune of the writer of these lines to have lived in the home over which this good woman presided in the year 1875, whole he was serving pastorally the Sparta station, and to have enjoyed intimate friendship with the family in subsequent years. He has known her therefore in all the vicissitudes of life which a quarter of a century contains, and he has not known a nobler woman. In person tall and queenly, in mind gifted and cultured, in heart amiable and pious, she combined excellencies which adorned the home, gladdened the social circle and blessed the church of God. Her character was independent of circumstances. In joy and sorrow, in affluence and adversity, in health and sickness, she was the same dignified, intelligent, devout woman. The first time I saw her was in the dear old home at Sparta, when in the strength and beauty of Christian womanhood at its best, surrounded by every earthly good, she was the adored wife and mother of one of the happiest Christian families I ever knew. The last time I saw her she was wasted with disease, slowly dying in Washington City, the affluence of former years gone, some of the children away and some across the flood, while she lay patiently awaiting the summons of her Lord. But disease was not able to efface the lines of womanly beauty in her serene face, nor could sorrow and adversity do aught to mar or obscure the nobler beauty of the soul. The beauty of the Lord her God was upon her there as it had transfigured her in all the former years. All was changed but our unchanging God, loving friendship that had never grown cold, and living faith, burning the more brightly because of the encircling gloom. And when she died they carried her wayworn body back to the old town of Sparta, where she had been so happy and useful, and laid it down to rest in the church yard of the little Methodist church which she served so long and so faithfully. Not far from her sleep the Bishop and Mrs. Pierce, and her own father, and Clara, the grown daughter, and Lovick, the baby boy - and little Grace, her pet and mine, when I was like the oldest son in the home. How broken are the circles of kindred and friendship before we have reached even middle age. Already so much of "my company is gone before." Little children with faces like cherubs, motherly women with patience and gentleness impressed on their brows, strong men, fallen down dead amid life's unfinished tasks, and the aged, who left me and disappeared through the golden gates of the evening; what a glorious company has gone before, which thinking of and longing for, I do sometimes so wish I were among them. I grow homesick. W. A. Candler

Details of Sarah (Sallie) Clayton's family with Lovick Pierce III