Jared V. Willson by Herbert J. Edmed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1916

Jared V. Willson

By Herbert J. Edmed

J. V. WILLSON died at Kimberley Hospital, Cape Colony, South Africa, at three o'clock on the morning of May 14, 1916, after an illness of ten days.

Brother Willson had been a Sabbath keeper for forty-three years, having accepted the truth in Somerset, N. Y., where he was born in 1852. He was first connected with our work as an evangelist, assisting in tent meetings, and was then secretary of the conference tract society for eight years. He later spent two years as tract society secretary in the Iowa Conference.

In 1879 he was married to Miss Lily Train, who died a few months after her marriage. Four years later he was united in marriage with Miss Sara E. Lane. In 1895 he took a three-year nurses' course at Battle Creek Sanitarium. In 1898 Brother and Sister Willson accepted a call to South Africa, and the next year took charge of the treatment-rooms known as the Kimberley Baths. With the exception of about five years, during which Brother Willson was secretary of the local and Union Conferences, they have devoted their time to the building up of the work of that institution. The place was deeply in debt when Brother Willson assumed control, and during his management he succeeded in liquidating the debt almost entirely, and won the esteem of the inhabitants of Kimberley. For several years past he occupied positions of responsibility on the conference committee. He was a much-loved local elder of the Kimberley church, which he served with untiring devotion.

At the age of sixty-four he began to feel that advancing years demanded a change, and negotiations had already been made for him to be transferred to lighter work, when it seemed necessary for him to undergo a critical operation. Realizing the danger connected with this, Brother Willson adjusted all his business affairs, handed over the treatment-rooms to a successor, and went to the hospital full of faith, his work completed. For ten days after the operation we hoped that he would recover, but a sudden change took place, and in the presence of Sister Willson, the nurses, and the writer, he passed away quietly. His last words were, “I laid hold of God’s promises. He is our refuge, and ‘underneath are the everlasting arms.’ I held on to this right through.”

Funeral services were held at the house and at the grave, in the presence of a large concourse of citizens and friends. The local papers published accounts of Brother Willson’s life, and the many floral offerings, letters and telegrams of sympathy, gave evidence of the high and wide esteem in which our brother was held. He was buried near the grave of Elder F. L. Mead, and there are many evidences that his consecrated and consistent life still speaks to the people who came under his influence. Our deepest sympathy is extended to his bereaved wife. HERBERT J. EDMED.