Obituary of Jane Rakes Hall, 1928 - Patrick Co. VA

Mrs. Jane Hall Dies At The Ripe Age Of 106 Years, In Leaksville

(Special to the Bee)
Leaksville, N.C., March 7-
Funeral services were held at 3  o'clock this afternoon for Mrs. Jane
Hall, probably the oldest woman in this section of the United States, who
would have been 106 years of age had she lived until next Saturday.

Remarkably well preserved and comming out of hardy pioneer Patrick county
stock, she bore the infirmities of old age with remarkable lightness, and
it was not until her fatal illness of two weeks ago that she began to fail.
Stricken with a bronchial infection, her lungs became congested and death
was due to pneumonia, which with her advanced age she did not have the
vitality to withstand.

Mr. Hall (sic) maintained a bright memory until her illness, in which the
heavy burden of years placed her under a severe handicap. She had the
remarkable experence of living under the regime of 26 United States
presidents, for she was born in 1822, and in that year James Monroe, the
fourth president of America, was beginning his second term.

The aged woman has actually contributed worthwhile information to
contemporaneous history, for until a month ago her memory was so alert that
she could recall well the events in her long life before the Civil war and
was willing to be interviewed and to throw into relief the early practises
so sharply contrasted with those of today. The greatest chapter of her life
was recorded in her native Patrick county, where during the first year of
the Civil war, when her husband was shot down, she was left with a houseful
of children and their only provider. In that day the living was cheap, but
during the distressful days of the Civil war and its aftermath she faced a
stern task in rearing her girls and boys. She not only ran the farm but
spun the cloth of winter evenings and did what she could to passing on to
her children homely truths of life and surrounding them with a Christian
influence which they were to reflect later.

Her father was one of the pioneersa of Patrick county. That was in a day
when the mountain county was viewed as a difficult of agricultural conquest
and where the soil was wrestled for a living. It was a day when women were
as active as men and where she acquired a strong physique which was the
foundation of her long life.

There is little doubt that Mrs. Hall was the oldest chuch member in
Virginia or North Carolina. Few could boast a church membership going back
75 years for it was then she joined the Primative Baptist church which was
a log hut and visited periodically by a circuit rider who preached all day
long and spent the night  in the mountain cabins of the congregation.

Mrs. Hall came to Leaksville about six years ago to make her home with her
daughter, Mrs. Lucinda Jefferson, on Matrimony Heights, where she passed
away. Her husband, David Hall died many years ago and of recent years she
visited her three surviving children who are Mrs. Jefferson, Mrs. Elisha
DeHart, of Woolwine, and a son, Jack Hall, who lives in West Virginia.

There is one sister, Mrs. Betty Spencer, of Henry county, and two
brothers, Ellis Rake and Lum Rake (sic), both of Henry.

Mrs. Hall's progeny is enormous and there are something like three hundred
immediate descendants in the form of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and
great-great-grandchildren.

The funeral was held from Mrs. Jefferson's home this afternoon by Rev.
Messrs. Cockram and Jefferson who paid tribute to her long useful and
interesting life. Interment took place in the North Spray Cemetary.



(Submitter note:  There is a photo of Jane Rakes Hall appearing with the article.  I think 
it is from the Danville (Va.) Bee, and has 1928 written on it.)

Submitted by Truman Adkins <tadkins@kimbanet.com>

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