TRIBUTE TO S. S. KIRK

By T. J. Barnes

The passing away of S. S. Kirk Sunday morning removes from our community another pioneer citizen who helped to blaze the trails and make McCurtain County a fit place in which to live.

We travel over our highways at a speed of better than forty miles an hour, never thinking of the pioneers who dug up the stumps and made such transportation possible for us. We admire our splendid buildings, without taking time to think of the pioneers who felled the forest trees and erected the little log school house that once stood on the same spot out of which evolved our present educational system.

We adore our modern artistic church edifices, without once stopping long enough to give credit, or praise to the pioneer citizens who organized these churches in the early days and nurtured them through the most trying times, "when all was vanity and vexation of the spirit". In the pell mell of these later days, we are prone to overlook the fact that it was pioneer spirit of such men as S. S. Kirk to sacrifice that makes our present social and educational progress possible.

The hardships that these pioneer citizens underwent to make this country a descent place in which to live and to rear their families known only to themselves for they never complained. S. S. Kirk was not of a plaintive or fault-finding disposition, but in all things he took life calmly and philosophically. He was a man of extraordinary business acumen. His judgement on economic conditions and values was much sought for and appreciated. He was a successful farmer and business man whose generosity ever went out to the "fellow down and out."

It is said of him that he attained a perfection that few have ever been able to attain in that he never worried over personal misfortunes or financial reverses. Such is the spirit and self control of a typical pioneer. It is one of the greatest Christian virtues possible for any one to attain in the world of adversity.

S.S. Kirk was not only a good pioneer citizen, who was ever ready to carry his end of the hand-stick, but he was a good citizen ever ready to help society and his fellow man attain the highest possible good in this life.

To his dear bereaved family let me say that there is such a thing as finding "pleasure in grief". Surely you will find no small pleasure, mingled with your sorrow for his loss, in cherishing the memory of the noble and worthy life he lived. S.S. Kirk was not an impulsive man of fickle resolutions, but to the contrary he was unassuming, the same yesterday, today and forever. He was just the kind of man needed most to settle up a new country and just the kind of man needed most to keep it from going on the rocks after it had been settled. He did his bit to leave the world better than he found it, and no doubt, he has passed on to his reward for having done so. His good name is an inheritage more to be desired than great riches. May his life be an inspiration to us to so live that when our time comes to go that we too, may leave a like heritage for our posterity, for life, real life, and the only life worth-while, does not consist in the abundance of material things possessed, but in the conscientiousness of having done our duty