Fulton Journal, May 18, 1897
The JOURNAL of last Tuesday contained the sad announcement of the death of Leroy Allison, who after a prolonged and heroic struggle with the king of terrors, passed from this life at sunset May 11, 1897. Roy was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. D.N. Allison and was born in Fulton, July 18, 1875.
From early boyhood Roy was remarkable for his retiring manners, as well as for close application to his studies. At the age of sixteen he graduated with his class from the Fulton high school andd although urged to complete his education by a college course that would prepare him for a profession, he preferred to remain with his parents. Thus it waas that he became an assistant and a comrade, and later the business partner of his father. Together they planned and built the handsome double brick store building completed about three years ago. Roy had full charge of the business since, selecting and buying the stock, keeping the books and attending to the correspondence. Every leisure moment he devoted to study, taking up type-writing and stenography, and without the aid of instructors he became expert in the use of a type-writer and was a fair stenographer.
Although quiet and retiring he was observant and possessed rare judgment so that he early developed the ability to report local news for the press, and was for several years telegraphic correspondent for a Chicago daily, and served as weekly reporter for one or more county papers. Alas! he thought and worked too well and at too great a cost.
His industry and energy carried him beyond the strength of his constitution and his close application, before his friends realized his condition, brought on his fatal illness. But not until disease had made alarming progress, did he leave his place in the store. While confined to his home and no longer able to rise from his bed, fighting for existence with a heroism as marked as that of Napoleon's old guard who when called upon to surrender or die chose death, his thoughts were almost constantly returning to things connected with the store, with business, and his father's welfare.
Not until the day of his death did he lose hope of recovery, and then realizing his great weakness and growing weary of the struggle, he whispered to his father, "I will have to give up." Surrounded by those he held nearest and dearest he met death with courage and tranquil composure. Indeed, almost his last words were an assurance that he was not afraid to die. Then the pulseless hand fell from the grief stricken father's clasp, the head that could feel pain and weariness no more was laid tenderly back upon the pillow, and the eyes from which the light had gone out forever were reverently closed, and silence fell upon breaking hearts.
While his untimely end crushes the hearts and hopes of his devoted friends and comes to them almost as an infinite sorrow, yet there is some consolation for them. The dead do not suffer. They are beyond the jealousies, the selfishness, the burdens, the sufferings and the sorrows of this world.
While called upon to part with this loved one it may be comforting to recall the fact that all who knew and loved him here, one after another, shall follow him, even as piglrims passing over a dark river whose other bank is lost in a mist not penetrable to mortal vision. There on the other side may one and all meet to part again never. Yes, meet, but not as shadows in a shadowy land. Say rather as tired sleepers waking into a higher, nobler, grander existence, a change as from the darkness of night to the bright light of midday. And can we not believe that all that is wrong here will be made right there, and whatsoever is lacking here shall be added there?
"He hears not the moan of the night wind now,
Or the sighing of whose who weep.
The pallor of death is upon his brow
He sleeps an eternal sleep."
