----Source: ABBOTSFORD TRIBUNE (Abbotsford, Wis.) 06/12/1924

Thayer, George H. (6 Dec 1862 - 6 JUN 1924)

It was a sudden shock that went over the Village of Abbotsford, Wis, and thus to the surrounding Villagers and country side, when last Friday morning the news regarding the death of Mr. George Thayer reached us.

Mr. Thayer, shortly after the death of his wife, left for Granton, where he paid his only brother, Wm. J. Thayer a visit. From there he went to Phlox to visit relatives and friends. The morning of his death he was preparing to come back to Abbotsford. While cranking his car, an attack of heart trouble came over him. He started for the house but did not get far when he fell to the ground. Death followed immediately.

He was brought to his home in the village on Monday afternoon.

Impressive services were held at the First Presbyterian Church by the Masonic Lodge, of which he had been a member. The local lodge members met at their local lodge rooms and formed. From the lodge rooms they filed two by two to the church where the services were read by various officers, John Olsen acting as master of the ceremony. From the Church the body was escorted by the lodge members, and fully one hundred others who wished by their presence to pay their last respects to the deceased. At the grave, the Masonic services were continued. The conclusion marked by a simple rite, being bestowed by the Lodge members, when each dropped into the grave a bit of evergreen with a true Masonic sign by each one.

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 dead, the chair that has no occupant, the fancied echo of the silent voice, and the vacant place in home, social and lodge life, are mellowing and uplifting in their influence. They bring the best of human nature into the fullness of vigor, crowding back the selfishness and imperviousness 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 wound it inflicts.

Mr. Thayer was born Dec. 6, 1862 at Jefferson, Wis., being the day he passed on 61 years, 6 months and 4 days old.

In 1878 he moved to Clark County, Wis. and settled on a farm some five miles west of the village of Abbotsford. For years he found joy in tilling the soil. His farm was one of the best in that community.

Later he purchased property in the village and moved here.

Mr. Thayer served on the local village board and was at the time of his death supervisor from Abbotsford on the County Board. He always stood for high principals and ideals.

Thus Abbotsford has lost a loyal supporter and a real citizen. He will be missed. His personality, his acts of kindness and his loyal support for the things of clean and upright citizenship. The county will miss him at their board meetings and his neighbors will miss his kind acts of each day.

Those attending the funeral from a distance were: P. M Thayer and wife and daughter, W. Scott Darin, George Amedon, Henry Williams of Granton, Frank Kolerat and wife and daughter from Kindall, Wis., Mr. and Mrs. William Bessonett and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Latrow, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Maix, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Cole and Joe Heinson from Phlox, Wis., Mr. and Mrs. G. Krause from Neillsville, Wis., Mr. and Mrs. Will Harvey, Mrs. Ball from Unity, and Miss Alva Thayer of Milwaukee.

The Tribune and a host of other friends join with the remaining ones in this hour of sorrow.