Published as it appeared on Jan. 27, 1916, in the Corvallis Gazette-Times, Page 3, Column 1.
Mrs. Minerva Bowers died Saturday evening at 9:30 at the home of her son-in-law, Paul Cruitt, at Wren, a small station at the C&E in western Benton county. The funeral was held Tuesday, with interment in the Newton cemetery at Corvallis. Mrs. Bowers was born July 18, 1825, and at the time of her demise was aged 90 years, six months and six days.
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Editor’s note: The certificate of death for Mrs. Bowers shows that she was born July 18, 1825, in Danville, Kentucky, the daughter of William Skelton and Elizabeth Jones. She died at 9:25 p.m. Jan. 22, 1916 with the cause of death listed as “senile debility.” She was buried at Mount Union Cemetery on Jan. 25, 1916. According to a marriage index, Minerva Skelton married Abram Bower in December 1849, in Dearborn, Indiana. The 1910 census shows her as an 84-year-old living in Indiana with a nephew. The grave marker appears to have been made with the incorrect year of birth — it shows 1826.