Harriet Anne VENABLE

   Other names for Harriet were Mrs. Harriet Anne EDMUNDS and Mrs. Henry Watkins EDMUNDS.

   User ID: P00050566.

  General Notes:

Harriet Anne Venable, b. at "Scott-Greene," Prince Edward Co., Va., Aug. 19, 1841; d. Farmville, Va., Aug. 12, 1923; mar. Sept. 7, 1864, Henry Watkins Edmunds. She was educated by tutors and governesses and at Miss Pegram's "School for Young Ladies" in Richmond, Va. The following memorial of Harriet A. Venable was written by William M. Thornton, a professor at the University of Virginia.

Mrs. Harriett Anne Venable Edmunds of Prince Edward County, Virginia, was the daughter of Thomas F. and Mary P. Venable, and wife of Henry Watkins Edmunds. On August 12, 1923, she passed from earth to Heaven. Born at Scott-Greene, near Farmville, ancestral home of her forbears on October 19, 1841, she was reared in the beauty and dignity and abundance of the old Virginian country life, and was married, September 7th, 1864, to the playmate of her childhood and lover of her later years. Returning shortly after to Scott-Greene as its mistress, she lived in this ancient dwelling a life, broad in its charities as the immemorial oaks that shaded her lawns, fragrant with its virtues as the sweet succession of the blossoms which adorned her garden. Nine children came to bless this union of whom eight survived to do honor to her golden wedding and now to reverence the memory of her fifty-nine years of wedded happiness. But her great heart reached far out beyond the confines of her home. She was the model of the patriotic woman. The heroisms of war taught her to love her country and the vandalisms of conquest only deepened that love. With feet ever swift to tread the paths of sacrifice and helpfulness, with hands ever strong to lift the burdens from suffering souls, with eyes ever keen to mark the need of the wretched and forlorn, her benignity knew no classes, no sects, no races. She was President of the Daughters of the Confederacy and active in every patriotic enterprise. She was a devout Christian who loved her church and strove ever to advance its power and broaden its charities. In her girlhood she was my Sunday School teacher and as I stood over her grave heaped with flowers laid on it by men and women and children who loved her memory and mourned her loss, the sound of the old lessons was in my ears. Again I heard the admonition of those sacred psalms I once learned for her, the haunting tenderness of those wonderful parables, the noble harmonies of the great hymns of faith, the deep-toned mysteries of redeeming love. And as I listened, I seemed to find them all incarnate in one woman's life. W. M. T.

Harriet married Henry Watkins EDMUNDS on 7 Sep 1864. (Henry Watkins EDMUNDS was born before 1850.)