Submitted by
Loyd Bishop

The funeral of W. N. Dick at the Presbyterian church, Ponca City, Tuesday afternoon was very largely attended. The services were conducted by Rev. D. Luther Edwards, pastor of the church, assisted by Rev. E. M. Snook, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Tonkawa. The body was taken to the old home at Taylorville, Ill., for burial. The following beautiful obituary is taken from the Ponca City Courier
Yesterday afternoon, as the autumn glories of a perfect day were almost spent, W. N. Dick gave back to the Great Creator the gift called Life. After a few weeks illness he laid down his stalwart years and answered to the beckoning finger of the Mysterious Messenger.
Our citizens are today drawn together in the bonds of a common bereavement, and we hope that in a measure we are led to magnify the hope that aids dying men and women to pass without fear through Death’s chill stream. Like lightning from a clear sky the gruesome shock came to us all. Mr. Dick was convalescing from typhoid fever, and on last Friday evening, after having sat up nearly all day, he retired, feeling better than he had felt for weeks. Before he slept, he had planned a visit with his wife upon the morrow, so he fell asleep strong in faith that another day would yield him an increase of strength in the vital things of life. But pain brought an early waking. Dr. George Germain was called and diagnosed perforation of the intestines. For such there is no relief, therefore he suffered untold agonies throughout Saturday and also throughout the hush of another weary night, broken by the glad sweet voices of the Sabbath morn and the orisons of man and Nature attuned to more of life.
In their new and cozy home today sits the wife he loved, with his farewell kiss still warm upon her tear burned cheek, broken hearted, bereft of all joy, wondering why the blest tie would be ruthlessly broken. The dying father shrank not in the ordeal of dying. He accepted his call without a murmur, for he had faith in the care of Him “who is the resurrection and the life.” Bro. Dick had not lived in vain, though poor, through the vicissitudes of unkind fortune, he had achieved the love and respect of all our citizens.
They tell us that he is dead, and the statement lays stress upon our credence for it was but a few days since that he mingled with us in the busy things of home and street.
He said to the writer: “Give my best regards to all my friends and God bless them all.” To his son Roy he confided the care of his stricken wife, and for his absent son he left a message of tenderness and moral magnitude.
Yesterday, as it were, he stood with us a picture of manly power and activity, today he has left us and the things about us, to enter some other school, to delve in some other field, where he shall ultimately mount the throne and be crowned and sceptered in dominion and power over himself.
After all it is hard for any of us to concede the ideal that within these narrow limits we are to find the full complement of human destiny. The poet aptly says:

“If all our hopes and all our fears
Were prisoner in life’s narrow bound,
If travelers through this vale of tears,
We saw no better world beyond.
Oh, what could check the rising sigh,
What joy could earthly pleasures give,
Oh, who could then endure to die,
Or who endure to live!”

Within the swiftly moving looms of human thought are being woven conceptions of man’s relation to the infinite that brings to our hearts the constant hope of a mighty, measureless, satisfying fruition. It does not banish God, while we stand mute and reverent, with our fingers on our lips, we do, nevertheless, with all our religious impulses and indefinite longings, tired of unrest and weary with controversy, turn to the everlasting Father with the all-meaning prayer, “Abide with me.”
Within us all are the possibilities of enlarged and indefinite development. Therefore, the need of our world is just men and women – in the larger and completer sense – with an amplitude of intellectual and moral power sufficient to lift them above the empty ambitions and frivolities of modern existence, and make them unafraid of the mighty meaning of a measureless life. Floating out on the unreturning waves of Death’s cold tide, he bade us all a loving good-bye, kissing the little babe, Zazelle, with an unutterable yearning for the peace and unity of its home, that love and forgiveness and forbearance and fidelity might twine within the roof-tree forever.
At three o’clock this afternoon, all who could find room gathered to pay their final tribute of regard to the memory of Brother Dick, and to listen to words of pathetic teaching by the pastors, Revs. D. Luther Edwards and E. M. Snook, and to join in songs of inspiration and hope over the coffined clay.
Out of this rude shock there emanates much that is timely and fruitful of good. Somewhere along Life’s highway this ineffably sad experience awaits us all. We will then gather up – not our material things – but our thoughts and purposes and ambitions and journey away as this friend and neighbor has done, and our bodies will sleep in some sunny nook where love has laid us.
And it shall be well with us if the world shall say that we did our best – without vanity or boastfulness, for the broadening and brightening of the daily life of the world.
We have been spared to continue our tasks in a land all glorified by the ideas and passions and prayers of men and women who have passed away. Let us, therefore, look with honest eyes to the farther hills of destiny.