Obituary of Mrs. Roe S. [Bliss] Davenport

Daughter of Sabrina [Bliss] Temple and Merritt Temple
(March 7, 1861 – June 16, 1935 – Age 74)

Mrs. Roe S. Davenport Came To This County In 1863; Taught Many Years

Roe S. Temple was born in Sunderland, Vermont, March 7, 1861, and died June 16, 1935, at her home in Lansing.  Funeral services were held in that city June 19, Rev. A. M. Jayne, pastor of the Central Methodist church officiating, and burial was made in the Duplain Cemetery.

She was the daughter of Merritt and Sabina [Bliss] Temple.  In 1863 she came to Michigan with her parents and they settled on section 8, Riley Township.  She was a granddaughter of David Bliss who pioneered in Riley when it was a wilderness, and whom the family followed to the county.

She attended country school and later obtained a teacher’s certificate.  She taught in the rural districts several years and also at St. Johns.  After that she followed her profession in the Upper Peninsula and at Duluth, Minn.  For some time she was bookkeeper for a lumber company in Tecumseh, Michigan.

Retuning to Clinton County in 1899 she was married to Hugh Watson of Duplain and they settled on the Temple homestead.  Later they bought a farm in Duplain and wee moving there when Mr. Watson contracted typhoid fever and passed away.  After his death Mrs. Watson sold the Duplain property and returned to Riley to live with her aged mother.  She again tool up teaching in Eagle village where she met and married Henry C. Davenport on May 5, 1905.  After a few years they moved to Lansing where they continued to live, and where Mr. Davenport died six years ago.

Mrs. Davenport was a charitable, Christian woman, highly respected and widely esteemed.  She was the donor of the Hugh Watson Memorial vault in Duplain cemetery, and also donated liberally to the support of the Methodist church at Lansing, of which she was a member.