Personality and Last Days
by weakness and lived only a few days, passing away on the 7th of September. Her remains were cremated, and the ashes sent in an urn to Windsor, Wisconsin, the family home. Appropriate services were held there, as also in Palo Alto. Notices of her death were given in most of the papers throughout the country.
Thus ended a life of untiring and heroic endeavor. Mrs. Colby's courage was wonderful, and it helped her to defy and overcome the most adverse circumstances. She had great sorrows, but she never paraded them. Indeed, she seldom spoke of them, even to her most intimate friends. She suffered great injustice, but she never complained. Always cheerful, always hopeful, she "left the things that were behind, and pressed forward to the things that were before."
The soldier climbing up Vimy Ridge bearing aloft the colors, amid the constant fire of the German guns, was not a more brave or heroic figure than the woman rising above disappointment and sorrow, hampered by untold difficulties, yet fighting gloriously on for the enfranchisement of the women of the world, never losing sight of the great ideal to which she aspired, but "bearing all things, hoping all things, believing all things" to the end.
Mrs. Colby was a strong and inspiring character. Her life was filled with useful
