Grubb Family Tree

Jeremiah Boston Work s/o Elijah Ireland and Margaret (McCreery) Work. b 22 Jan 1855-Indiana Co., Pa; d 27 Mar 1929-Tarkio, Mo,; bur Oakland Cemetery, Indiana, Pa; md 19 Aug 1885-Kermoor, Pa. to Mary McClure Watts who was b 27 June 1864-Kermoor, d 7 Dec 1951 -Norton Mass., and is also buried at Indiana, Pa. She was the d/o Martin and Elizabeth Marion (Hoyt) Watts.

Children:

Paul Work - b 18 June 1886
Herman Work - bo 18 Aug 1888
Mariah Margaret Work - b 9 May 1891 - Norfolk, Va.; d 1 Jan 1898
Eunice Work - b 15 Oct 1894 - Norfolk, Va.; d 3 Jan 1961 - Staunton, Va.

Jeremiah Boston Work recieved a B.S. from Westminster College; D.D. - Westminster; was a graduate student at Princeton Univ.; Princeton Theological Seminary and Allegeny Theological Seminary. The following excerpts appeared in the 1930 issue of the Tarkiana. The writer's name is not noted.

"...He was ordained a minister in the United Presbyterian Church in 1886 when he was installed pastor at McCoysville, Pa. He was principal of Norfolk Mission College, an institution for colored students, for a few years... He was then made Dean of the Theological Dept of Knoxville college and remained in this position until a serious break in his health occurred. His life was despaired of and his physicians gave him no hope but through the careful nursing of his faithful wife and in answer to the prayers of his devoted colored friends, he recovered and became pastor at Tranquility, Ohio, a pastorate which continued until 1910 when he became pastor at Olathe, Kansas, where he remained until called to become Vice-President and Teacher of Bible in Tarkio College ... A great teacher and a preacher of outstanding ability, Mr. Work was honored with the degree of D.D. by his alma mater in 1902, was made moderator of the Synod of Iowa of the United Presbyterian Church in 1916, and was a member of the Board of Managers of Xenia Theological Seminary at the time of his death.... One day a few of us were talking about being Christians, and about the difference between the average church member and teh man who was truly Christ-like. One boy expressed the opinion of the group when he said, 'I can be a Christian part of the time, but Dr. Work is a Christian all the time.' When he stood at the door of his classroom with his 'Good morning', and when he chided us in his kindly way for being late to class, we loved him. When he asked us a question which we should have known, but answered wrongly, his 'Oh, no dear, you know better than that', showed that he loved us--the meanest, the most mischievous, the most careless of us he loved-and love begets love... He did not teach us the Bible as a textbook, he taught it to us as the Work of God. He pointed us always upward and onward; never to the Christ in the tomb, but always to the Christ who died and is alive foreevermore. To have known Dr. Work was a privlege , to have been in his classes year after year was a pricelses treasure, a treasure which will got with us through life, a holy influence urging us never to let down the bars, but always to be at our best. When we meet him again, he will greet us with the same rare smile."

Perhaps we can know Jeremiah Boston Work better if we can read some of his thoughts and feelings. This was published in the Tarkiana in 1928:

"Character is like the mosaics of the buried past. Built up little by little, it becomes the unchanging memorial of life. Its perfection is... its appeal to truth and beauty...children of Genius...took the little things, the common things, the clays, the lgasses, the stones, teh metals, and arrayed them in harmonies of color and form that fill the soul with the aching sense of the beautiful. Singly the elements of the mosaic are insignificant; touched into order by the inspiration of the artist the live and berathe, and speak. Life and character are made up of little things... Their elements may fall into chaos and discord, or may march to the music of a divine harmony. The material of character must at least be sound, something that will at least survive the tests of time and change...Nothing can be achieved in teh formation of good character without order of harmony and purpose...Though we may work humbly and obscurely, some day the light of heaven will fall upon our finished task, and we shall see that ours was an essential part in an eternal plan."