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The Baptist Courier Mrs. Sophia D. McMillan
Died at "Forest Home," the family home for so many years, in Barnwell County, South Carolina, August 5th in the eighty fifth year of her age, Mrs. Sophia D. McMillan, wife of Capt. H. W. McMillan, one of the most honored and influential citizens of Barnwell County, who died some twenty-odd years ago. Sister McMillan was no ordinary woman, but was one that possessed such force of character and will, joined with so much goodness of heart and sympathy with human suffering, that she was respected and loved by all who knew her. The writer, who was her pastor for twenty-two years, always thought of her as "the virtuous woman" whose character Solomon described and whose praise he sang in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs. Strikingly true was that description of her. She ate not "the bread of idleness," "the heart of her husband trusted in her;" "her husband was known in the gates;" "her children arise up and call her blessed;" and living and dead "her own works praise her in the gates." To her husband, with whom she began her married life poor, she was indeed a helpmeet, entering with heart and hands hopefully and bravely into the struggle of life with him, until competence, ease and comfort and a beautiful and happy home came as the reward of their mutual and united labors and self-denials. She was a business woman and loved to see work going on in the house and fields. It was only the infirmities of old age that stopped her busy hand and feet. "Forest Home," of which she was the life, though remote from railroads and towns, was a well known for its hospitality and happy family and social life as perhaps any other modest country home in the county or state. That home had great attraction for many people, and who that went there once did want to go there again. Denied the advantages of a liberal education herself, it was her efforts and sacrifices to see her sons and daughters enjoy such advantages, and her home to become noted for its culture and refinement. To the writer, and to many others, Forest Home will ever be a delightful memory for the kindness that was the atmosphere of it. The blessing of God rested in large measure upon our departed sister in giving her a strong constitution and good health down to her old age, a noble man for her husband and a large family of children that loved her with a love as tender and strong as that of little children. Honored above most mothers, she received from the Lord a heritage of fifteen children, seven daughters and eight sons, all of whom lived to be grown up, and not one of whom had she cause to be ashamed. Ten of her fifteen children survive her. Of her three dead sons, Dr. Barney McMillan was an active and rising young surgeon in the late war and died three years after its close. Pinckney, or "Pink," as the family called him, and a youth of great promise was killed in one of the great battles in Virginia, and Frank died at the end of the war at Charleston, South Carolina, a commission merchant, who had already made for himself a name as a first class business man. One of her two dead daughter, "Addie" died in her early womanhood, a young woman of rare attraction of mind and person. The other one, Julia, a lovely woman married but did not live long. Of her living sons I will only say that they are among the substantial and best men of Barnwell County, and that they are all strictly sober men, as were their deceased brothers. Of the surviving daughters two of them are the wives of Baptist preachers, one the wife of Rev. T. M. Bailey, D.D., and a woman widely known and loved for her bright intellect, fine culture, kindly disposition and useful life; and the other the wife of Rev. R. S. Williams, of Colleton County, South Carolina. It need only be said of her remaining three daughters, that they are the worthy daughters of a noble mother. And yet I cannot close this poor tribute to my departed friend, from whom I received so much kindness, without making special mention of her darling "Tish," the youngest daughter, who was a ministering angel to her mother the last twelve years of her life. And this she was not from greater love but from greater opportunity, being the home daughter. For several years before her death her children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren kept an annual family reunion, and spread a large table, around which gathered, with many of her friends and neighbors, more than a hundred of her offspring. The love and respect shown her on these occasions by her sons and daughters, sons-in-law and her daughters-in-law, her grand children, and the great number of friends and relatives who came to see her, was beautiful. But life's journey ended, the aged pilgrim has put off the burden of the mortal body, and has gone up to the Heavenly Home, and there awaits a more glorious reunion with the loved ones already there and the loved ones yet to come. John G. Williams
************************************************************************************ This file was contributed for use by the Bamberg County SCGenWeb Project by: Sybile McMillan Pierce
This is the obituary on my great, great-grandmother Sophrone Delilah
"So-Fi-Yah" Faust McMillan, she was the daughter of Christian I. Faust
and Eunice Abstance. This McMillan family lived in what is now present
day Colston Community of Bamberg County, S.C. In the old days it
would have been Barnwell County, S.C.
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