Mrs. Mary M. Hiestand Conover was born in Wyandotte county, Ohio, May 19, 1856.

She was the daughter of Mr. M. and Mrs. Nancy Hiestand, who have both preceded her to the glory land.

She met and married Irvin Nickols [sic] Conover after a brief period of courtship they were married on the 20th of February, 1886. To this union were born two children who remain to mourn the loss of a kind mother and the best of friend. Their names are, Glen Ellis Conover who is at the front battling for the liberty she so faithfully taught her children they should at all times be ready to defend with all their power; the daughter Mrs. Lena Jackson, who was at her bedside as she bid farewell to earthly things. She is also mourned by the little grand daughter, Mary Jackson in whom she was very much wrapped up.

Among other relatives whom she precedes to the land of rest are four brothers, John W., Jessie L., David C., and Samuel E. Heistand. She is also missed by her two sisters, Mrs. Delia Kiser and Mrs. Kate Fitch, the latter who for over a year waited on her so faithfully and untiringly to the hour of her death.

At the age of twenty three she met and accepted her Lord Jesus Christ and united with the Christian church at Greensburg Missouri, later moving to Farnam she united with the Baptist church in which church she remained a faithful and devoted member to the day of her death. As an active christian she had no superior, as she was the main stay of the women’s work in her church for years. She was able to inspire her associates to activity, to prayer, and to devotion, her very presence was a benediction to all. Her interest, however, was broader than her particular church, for she manifested a loving interest in all other churches and always inquired as to their state, ever praying for their progress. She was a benediction to her pastor for whom she continually prayed, and always was ready to lend her counsel to the solving of the many problems of the work.

The church in her departure loses one of the most spiritual members which will be impossible to ever replace. The community loses one of the most faithful mothers whose influence for the best things were rarely equalled [sic]; heaven, however, gains a faithful warrior who, though scarred, with the marks of many severe battles, came out victorious in the strength of Him who she trusted so implicitly to her last earthly breath. Truly it can be said with confidence that she could say with the great apostle whom she tried to hard to imitate: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day and not to me only, but unto all those that love his appearing.”

The Farnam Echo, 12 Sep 1918