Obituary: Joel Hendrix of Manatee County, FL (1811 - 1891)

Joel Hendrix rests in peace on the Palmetto property that was once his home and grove. Hendrix Family Cemetery.

Joel Hendrix's death announcement in the local paper:

"On last Wednesday, the death angel visited our neighborhood. The aged and highly respected Joel Hendrix was removed from among us. We extend our sympathy and condolence to the bereaved family."

The following obituary appeared in the local paper on July 9, 1891 following Hendrix's death on July 1, 1891. The newspaper in which it appeared I assume to be the Manatee River Journal, which according to published accounts, began publishing in 1880.

Another Land Mark Gone.

"Father Hendrix, as his friends and neighbors called him, died last Wednesday at his home in Palmetto.

Several days prior to his death he told his wife that he should die before the week was out--that he was ready to go--and that his daughter, who had died some years before, had asked him to join her in the spirit land.

Fearing he was ill, they asked him to accept medical aid; this he refused, but employed his time in preparing for his funeral; and selected for his grave a picturesque location in his orange grove at the base of a great oak, whose top had been broken off by storms, and over whose lifeless trunk the tendrils of the woodbine had commenced to climb.

As soon as these preparations were completed he fell asleep and death took his tired form in her restful arms.

He married in 1843 and was the father of eight children, of whom but two survive him: One a daughter now living in Texas, the other his son, who is now promoting the various interests inaugurated by his father, who was among the first to engage in the large fruit and vegetable industries of this locality.

This good and kind hearted man was the friend of every thing honest, pure and true. He despised shams and false pretense, hypocracy (sic) and cant, and joined no organizations to further his political or pecuniary interests, nor borrowed the livery of the church for unholy ends; but always, and under all circumstances fearlessly championed the cause he believed was right, regardless of what others might say or think of him.

Until the infirmities of age had impaired his physical powers he was acknowledged leader of the Society of Spiritualists at Palmetto, but he bowed to no ritual or creed or alters of bigotry or pride, feared no undying worm or endless fires, nor at his last hour asked for undeserved rewards, or begged for raptures under golden palms, on jasper streets, or cringing cried to heaven for unmerited crown, but simply prayed that He who noted the sparrow's fall and the beauty of the lilies, would give to him that which was needful, whether he asked it, or asked it not, and refuse that which would be harmful, even though he might ask it most earnestly. 

He was hopeful to the end and his passing was full of peace. He wasted no precious hours of life in vain regrets for lost opportunities or for that which under other circumstances might have more enobled him. He was faithful to his tasks, and accepted the life work God mapped out for him, and he saw more beauty in the flowers and fruits of earth than on guilded domes and painted alters, and heard sweeter music in child voices and songs of bees and birds among his orange groves, and the whispering of the winds and murmur of the waters of the river he loved so well, than from church choirs or among the demonstrations of revival meetings, and when they laid away at last all that death had left of good old Father Hendrix, beneath the orange trees he had planted years ago, the mocking bird and red bird joined the songs his neighbors had sung as they bore the body to the grave, and as the perfume of the flowers upon his coffin rose like incense on the summer air a benediction from the better land seemed to rest upon us there, while spirit voices whispered: 'His Rest is Peace.' "

---A.J.A.

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