Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

WHAT THE YEARS HAVE BROUGHT 327
two years it was restored by an operation at the hand of Dr. John
Martin, a skillful surgeon of the East. I mention this circumstance
to account for an act of almost unparalleled generosity, for about
five years after Joseph was restored to sight, I, too, became blind,
and after all the help we could get from physicians of that period, it
was discovered that I was to be left very deficient in sight; so Joseph
pleaded with our parents to bestow the entire patrimony upon me,
alleging that he was able to get along better without it than I was
with it. So he voluntarily and against the advice of our parents
disinherited himself for my sake. Such examples of brotherly
affection deserve record for the credit of the nineteenth century.
That is not all. His religion took the style of that described in
James 1 :27, the pure and undefiled kind — visiting the widow and
the fatherless in their affliction and keeping himself unspotted from
the world. The fruit of benevolence, truthfulness, and uprightness
shone out through all his long, quiet, and laborious life. His integrity
was so well known that his neighbors said of him: "Joseph
Watkins never told a lie in his life."
He was a man, to take him all in all, for benevolence of purpose,
purity of heart, and persevering industry in the most exhausting
labor, whose like it will be long ere we look upon again.
He was to me much more than most fathers are to their sons;
I tremble to think what I might have been had not such an elder
brother been mine. He is gone, and I am bereaved of this best of
brothers. It will not be long till we shall meet and greet him on
the other shore. I owe to his guidance under Christ and to his
fraternal benevolence all I am here or all I ever hope to be hereafter.
He was a tender husband, a kind father, and a devoted friend.
He has left behind him a wife and five children, who have all made
the Christian profession; and their hearts must ache in loneliness for
the loss of a beloved husband and a venerated father.
A grandson of Uncle Joseph, Wilbert W. Watkins, and his
wife Nettie, live in Winona, Wilbert having gone there to work
in Brother Joseph's laboratory a number of years ago. He is
the compounder, and in this position of trust he has shown
himself, like his forefathers, honest, industrious, and capable.
In a quiet little home our aged father spent his last years in
study and the enjoyment of his church relationship, but at
last the time came when we had to give up our saintly father.
A ministerial convention of his brothers in the church met in
Cameron, and though he had eagerly anticipated attending
its sessions it did not seem wise at last for him to do so. What