Obituary of Benjamin Franklin Odenbaugh

Benjamin Franklin Odenbaugh was born December 11, 1853, near Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania.  He traveled with his parents and two elder brothers, Rose and George, to Osawattomie, Kansas, when he was thirteen years old.  They took passage on a steamboat at Wheeling, Virginia, and went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thence down the Ohio River into the Mississippi and finally into the Missouri as far as Kansas City, Kansas.  From here they went by stage to Paola, the county seat of Miami County, Kansas, and stayed there until they found a location, which was a large farm.  Here he lived with his parents until they died, they having had some pretty hard times owing to droughts and grasshoppers, which ate up their crops.  On this account Mr. Odenbaugh went to an uncle in Clark County, Missouri to seek work about 1878.

Here he became acquainted with Miss Mary Alice Cooper, of Luray, Missouri, and whom he married at the Baptist Church on February 1, 1880.  To this union ten children were born, four girls and six boys:  there being three girls and four boys surviving him, with their mother.  They lived a few years in Kansas, and spent four or five years in Missouri.  In the meanwhile, his father having died, in 1880, he with his family moved back to Kansas to take care of his mother.

In 1898, they all came across the country in a wagon and settled near DeWitt, Arkansas.  At this time Stuttgart was the nearest town, as little was known of DeWitt, and nothing at all was known of Gillett.  However, all of Mr. Odenbaugh's later life was spent in Gillett and in 1910 he united in membership with the M. E. Church, South.  He lived a devoted life to his family, when he suddenly departed this life, December 10, 1922, of heart failure, at the age of 68 years, 11 months, 29 days.

Two boys, Roy and Carl, died just after coming to Arkansas, and one daughter, Mrs. Katie Rockhardt, having died two years ago last March 8, 1922.  His eldest brother George Odenbaugh, of San Francisco, California, died last June, 1922.

He leaves to mourn their loss seven living children:  four sons, John B., F. Irl, Bennie F., and Albert M. Odenbaugh, and three daughters, Mrs. Alva Hargrove, Mrs J.E. McGhie, and Mrs. George O Byers:  also a nephew, Claud Odenbaugh, and twenty-five grandchildren.

Funeral services were conducted from the home in Gillett, Tuesday, afternoon, Decembe 12, 1922, by the Rev. E.D. Hanna, pastor of the M.E. Church, South, and interment was made in Gillett Cemetery.

"A precious one from us has gone

            A voice we loved is stilled:

A place is vacant in our home,

            Which never can be filled.

God in His wisdom has re-called,

            The boon his love has given,

And though the body slumbers here,

            The soul is safe in Heaven."

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