"Grave Dug, Monument Ready, He Waits for Death"

Whitney

It would be stretching it to claim that this story has anything in particular to do with Lucas County, but I did find it on the front page of The Des Moines Sunday Register of August 14, 1921, while looking for information about a Valley Junction murder suspect captured in Chariton. And I'm betting a good many Lucas Countyans did read it that day, since The Sunday Register --- then and now --- was and is the medium of choice for those who read Sunday newspapers.

But the protagonist is a Waterloo man, William T. Whitney, then 86, in failing health that obviously had darkened his outlook on life, but still capable of spinning yarns, occasionally with tongue in cheek, that with an assist from a little golly-gee-whiz reporting could sell newspapers. The reporter, perhaps The Register's stringer in Waterloo, is not identified. 

The centerpiece story is headlined "Grave Dug, Monument Ready, He Waits for Death" and features a  large photograph Whitney's tombstone and a portrait. I've lifted tombstone photographs from Find a Grave. There are a number of accuracy issues with the story, but I'll come back to those later. Here's the original text:

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Grave Dug, Monument Ready, He Waits for Death

Has Strange Views On Life and Death

Whitney Does Not Want to Hear Gabriel's Horn

Waterloo, Ia., Aug. 13 (Special) --- Lack of faith in humanity has caused William T. Whitney, wealthy retired farmer and one of the few survivors of pioneer days, to arrange every detail of his funeral when life, which he regards as misfortune, shall have ended for him.

Whitney, for many years a close personal friend of the late Theodore Vail, head of the Bell Telephone company, and of Mark Twain, the humorist, has for years been a well known character in Waterloo because of his strange views of life and death.

"I wish to be laid away so securely that I shall never hear Gabriel when he blows his horn," says Whitney, who personally supervised the digging of his own grave in Elmwood Cemetery.

The grave is of regulation depth, is cemented up with solid concrete sides and bottom to a thickness of eight inches. The men who did the work have been paid and dismissed, but the boss of the job is under contract to construct a cover of cement six inches thick, this in turn to be covered with two layers of brick placed on edge and solidly cemented.

"I am being placed in that hole to sleep," Whitney told the workmen as they prepared his last resting place. "And I am not going to have anybody disturbing me by coming around here and blowing a horn some of these days."

Death Date Paid For

Whitney is an unbeliever in religious matters but he isn't taking any chances on the biblical quotation that the angel shall come some day with a horn to awaken the faithful.

A plain white stone has been placed at the head of the empty grave. On top of the stone is cut the single word "Father," and below it, the date of birth, 1835. A local stone cutter has been paid to cut the date of death when that time comes.

No minister will officiate when the remains of this strange man are consigned to their last resting place. Whitney has already prepared his own funeral sermon. "We cannot say whether death is a wall or a door," he writes in this strange document. He holds out no hope for life eternal but qualifies his remarks by stating that he would take no morsel of hope from those who expect a life of happiness beyond the skies. Music at his funeral, if there be any, must be bright, gay and cheerful.

The funeral document which will be read by a close personal friend as Whitney's remains are consigned to the grave, is as follows:

"If I write what I believe I shall not please my friends. If I write to please my friends I shall be false to myself. So without wishing to be odd or cranky it seems best to die and be buried in silence. I hope this brief explanation will be acceptable to all intelligent folks.

Love the Only Hope

"I have no disposition to criticize others. They have as good a right to their opinions as I have to mine. Only ignorance is arbitrary. Humanity is my religion. I know nothing beyond the skies --- I leave the dead where nature leaves them. The idea of immortality was born of the human heart and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.

"We cannot say whether death is a wall or a door, the beginning or end of a day, the spreading of pinions to soar or the folding forever of wings; whether it is the rising or setting of a sun or an endless life that brings rapture to everyone. We do not know --- we cannot say.

"If there is a world of joy --- so much the better. I would not put out the faintest star of human hope that ever trembled in the night of life. There was a time when I was not --- after that, i was --- now I am --- and it is just as probable that I shall live again as it was that I could have lived before I did. Let it go. Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. Love was the first dream of immortality. Love is the morning and the evening star --- it shines upon the child --- it sheds its radiance upon the peaceful tomb.

"Love is the perfume of that wonderous flower --- the heart. Without that divine passion, without that divine sway, we are less than beasts --- and with it earth is heaven and we are gods."

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When the prairies of Iowa bloomed with wild flowers of pioneer times, Whitney was among the first to make his way west and build a home along the banks of the Cedar river. He married early in life --- loved his wife and when a son, whom he christened Arthur, was born his happiness was complete.

His Wife Untrue

Then one day the sunshine went out of his life. He returned to his home unexpectedly and found his wife in the arms of another man --- a neighbor whom he had befriended and trusted.

A terrific battle was waged within his heart for days. Honor won the fight and for the sake of the little son, the husband forgave the wife who had broken faith with the man she had vowed before God to honor, love and obey.

Then the final blow which made of him a wanderer for years came as a thunderbolt from a clear sky. The little son was found dead in bed beneath the comforts. He had smothered.

Whitney, broken hearted, had a long talk with his wife. He built her a little home within the city limts of Waterloo, provided her with cash and then set out for the then little known west.

His team brought him to an Indian settlement along the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains. The Indian chief lorded it over an area about 400 miles square. Whitney became a good friend of the redmen, lived their life for years and nearly forgot the past --- nearly, but not quite.

Then the mountain fever struck him twice. He feared a third attack would prove fatal. He decided to leave that part of the country. When the Indian chief heard of his decision he paid the Iowan a visit. He offered valuable concessions if Whitney would stay and ordered that on a certain day every Indian of his tribe be brought together. The Waterloo man was to have his choice of any squaw upon the premises upon this occasion.

Again a battle was waged within him. He hated his former associations because they reminded him of those things he wished above all to forget. He hated his former home because of the heartaches he had experienced there --- and he had come to like his red friends.

Only Human Mates Scrap

Then, as he was about to accept the easy road for the future --- one night he remembered the words of a former friend: "Never mix the blood of your ancestors with that of the savage." Whitney's horse that night carried him still further into the west and a week later he was in Frisco and had engaged a berth on a ship bound for Panama.

"During my many years in the west among the wild animals," says Whiteney, "I have observed their habits and methods of living. I have never seen the male of any of these animals engage in a fight with the female of the species; it is only man and woman, the highest order of creation, that fights and quarrels."

Whitney eventually landed in Waterloo. At the age of 58 years he met and married a farmer's daughter, then 28 years old. She was 30 years younger than he.

May and December

"Youth and old age can never mate," he remarks. "I was too old to rear my children when the time came for them to be born," he laments. "I would have it taught in every school in the nation that there can never be anything in common between an old man and a young woman --- springtime and autumn can have nothing in common; it is one of nature's laws. The first is the budding of a new, a vital life, the latter is but the passing of a worn out hulk, of that which has been but can never be again."

"Life is a disappointment. I consider it a misfortune to have been born," he tells those who visit him.

Ready for Death

Whitney was born in Maine, on a small, barren, stony farm. It was not only stony but stumpy as well. Bears, wolves, fox and other wild animals were plentiful but the Whitney family lacked money.

"My father took more interest in religion that he did in tilling the soil," he says. "He believed the Lord would provide. His whole ambition was to pray and go to meeting. He had so much faith in the Lord that when the crisis came, to save his faith from weakening, the Lord took him home and left the poor, hopeless widow to fight the battle with her starving children alone.

"Faith had fled --- hard work and plain diet saved us and we children grew strong while mother gradually weakened and died. With all the harrowing experience there comes one consoling thought. Death and the priesthood have no terrors for me. I must go soon. I am not afraid. I am waiting to welcome death as I sit here on my porch. But death mocks me --- it laughs at me and seems to say, "I am in no hurry for you, for I am sure of you when I want you."

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As I said earlier there are a number of inaccuracies in The Register story. I suspect that these are more a matter of inaccurate reporting than anything else, although we're unlikely ever to know for sure.

Whitney indeed was born in Penobscot County, Maine, on Sept. 19, 1835, and came west to Iowa during 1857, when he was 22. The trek west to San Francisco was made during 1859, however, long before he married for the first time.

It is entirely possible that he did encounter Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) during his travels, but there's no indication that they were friends; and there's something (or a good deal) fishy about his alleged encounters with Native Americans.

Whatever the case, he returned to Waterloo via Panama during the Civil War and opened a livery business, which was the foundation of his modest fortune. He also acquired farm land within what now is Waterloo, another source of affluence.

He married Josephine E. Brott (1846-1923) in Black Hawk County during 1868 and they became the parents of a son, Arthur, born during March of 1871. Arthur died --- at the age of 11 on 15 May 1882 --- in Waterloo and is buried near his father in Elmwood Cemetery.

In 1892, perhaps after years of separation, William and Josephine were divorced and he married as his second wife, Lucy Canfield, many years his junior. They became the parents of two daughters --- not mentioned in The Register story --- Malinda, born 1893, and Lucy, born during November of 1903. Lucy, wife and mother, died during January of 1904, less than two months after baby Lucy's birth and the infant was taken in and raised by Carrie Hitchcock Goodrich, but supported by her father who continued to take an interest in her life.

Although William declared himself ready to go in 1921 he actually lived four more years --- until Jan. 20, 1925, when he died at age 89 at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, Malinda and Frederick C. Letsch. Daughter Lucy was a student at the University of Minnesota at the time.

Described by The Waterloo Courier as a "picturesque figure" of the city and a 68-year resident, his passing was reported upon extensively. And it would appear that the directions he left behind for last rites and final disposition of his remains were carried out precisely as he had directed.