Nahum Ward Koons, son of Johnathan and Abagail Koons, was born October 3rd, 1837, in Athens county, Ohio, and died October 26th, 1921, age 84 years and 23 days.

He was married to Anna R. Bates October 2nd, 1837, to which union there were born nine children, seven sons and two daughters.

His wife, two sons and the two daughters having proceeded him to the higher life.

In the year 1858 he and his father with their families moved to Franklin county, Illinois, where he lived for some ten years when he moved to Perry county, Illinois, near Duquoin, later moving to Wayne county, Missouri where he resided until the year 1880, when he returned to Illinois settling on the same farm his father purchased when they came from Ohio. Since that time, the greater part of his life had been spent in Illinois, although after the death of his wife, which occurred in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, October 30th, 1899, he spent a few years in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and he died at the home of his son, Robert A. , where he made his home for the past four years.

He had been an avowed Spiritualist since early childhood, and had also been a medium for various Spiritul manifestations, having traveled quite extensively when a young man through eastern cities in the interest of the cause, and was the principal medium at his father's home in Athens county, Ohio, where seances for Spiritual manifestations were given under test conditions almost every dayand night for ten years, where hundreds were convinced of the immortality of the soul and the possibility of communion between the mortal and the immortal life.

His religion consisted of doing good and living an honest and upright life, treating all persons with the respect that is due them and acting in a manner that his conscious would never condem him.

He believed in helping those in destress both with his sympathy and his substance, and in short, living an exemplary life.

He leaves to morn their loss two brothers, George E. of Florida, and J.B. Koons of West Frankfort, Illinois; five sons, George B. of Oklahoma, John A. and Robert A. of Mt. Vernon, Illinois, Samuel of California and Joseph B. of New Youk; seventeen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

He bore his illness without a murmur, knowing all that loving friends and kind hands could do had been done, and died peacefully like one going into a pleasant sleep.

Submitted by Mary Jane Ohms