Caddo Herald
September 14, 1917
Gone Home
When the rose petals fall and scatter we all know there has existed beauty, fragrance, and blessings, and so on last Friday morning when the word passed from lip to lip that “Grandma Folsom is dead”, everyone learned anew of the purity of heart and mind which had animated and inspired the simple and humble, yet great and grand life she had lived here. We looked upon that mortal body as it lay in that handsome white couch casket, the peaceful repose upon that face, the aristocratic profile, all blended to make death beautiful. There was no sting to that death, and in that face one could plainly see the assurance that she had gone to be forever with the God and Father who she so loved and served.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love”.
The great love and tender mercy which ruled Mrs. Folsom’s life work were abundantly and generously demonstrated in raising nine orphan children. In 1850 when Mr. Joel Nail was a nursing baby, she went to Arkansas and brought home with her “Baby Carr”, with whom she shared her own baby’s nourishment. and this child later became the aunt of Mrs. A.B. McCoy.
An Indian woman once came to her home with a pitiful and neglected looking baby. Mrs. Folsom’s mother’s heart was grieved at this and she began to plan to get the child. The woman was a great tobacco user and when she was going to leave she asked Mrs. Folsom for tobacco. and she told her that she would give her tobacco for her baby. The woman at once traded and Mrs. Folsom kept the child for a while when it became sick and died. Two of the children she raised were beside her in death, and were heard to say “I have lost the best friend I ever had on earth.”
“To the pure all things are pure.”
In early years she was a devout member of the Methodist church in Caddo- in later years she embraced the Christian science faith and the funeral services were conducted at her home by Mrs. M.A. Franklin, the Science Practitioner here. The body was accompanied to the Nail Cemetery near the old Nail Crossing. There in that quiet and dear old country forest lies the mortal remains of a good woman, away form the noise and turmoil of life; away from the strife and toil that so often make us wander from and forget God and the hour when we are to meet him face to face. How good for the living to go to such a spot for a season and to have time to think! In the depths of that silent forest enclosed by an iron fence, in the midst of the square and stately cedar and beneath its drooping branches a family monument with four sides. One side bore the name of the first husband, Jonathan H. Nail, to whom she was married in 1848 near old Doaksville, and from which union our Mr. Joel Nail is the only child. The next side is in memory of her second and last husband, Daniel H. Folsom to whom she was married in 1867. The third side bears the name of her only and beloved brother, J. H. Foster whom she raised and with who he always made his home. The fourth side was a blank, and in that space her own name will be placed.
In 1866 she planned and bought this monument- leaving the one side for her own name. Mr. Joel Nails says he well remembers the day the monument came and was placed there and the calm, the stillness, when they all looked upon that blank. No word was spoken but all knew. Mr. Joel Nail, her only surviving blood heir, and Mrs. Vivian Locke, and D.O. Nail, Sr., her only surviving grand children. During her last illness she was in Mrs. Locke’s home where she so loved to be and where nothing was spared to make her last days happy and comfortable.
Her mantle of generosity has fallen upon Mrs. Locke, and we commend to all these loved ones that they be as she was, “ready to see God”.