Isabelle Deuel

Isabelle Deuel, Wyoming Pioneer, Dies in New York

Mrs. Isabelle Riggs Deuel, 94, pioneer resident of Wyoming and a teacher during its territorial days, died in Deposit, N.Y. Friday, Nov. 30.

Mrs. Deuel was born at Canonsville, N.Y. Jan. 27, 1857 and came to Wyoming in 1883 as a teacher. She taught along the Platte River, her first school being in a sod building where the town of Torrington now stands. She also taught at Uva and old Fort Laramie.

In 1894 she returned east for a time and in September of that year was married to Frank Deuel. They returned to Wyoming to make their home, locating in Lusk as Mr. Deuel had a sheep ranch south of the town.

Mr. Deuel died in 1917 and she continued to make her home here until 1924 when she returned to Deposit, N. Y. near Canonsville to make her home with a brother.

During the years that Mrs. Deuel lived in Lusk she was an active worker in the Congregational Church, holding most of the offices associated with the church and at one time was president of the Women's Congregational Society of Wyoming.

The funeral was held Sunday afternoon, Dec. 2, at 2:00 o'clock in the Percy Weidman Funeral Home in Deposit. The Rev. S. Burman Long, D. D., a former pastor of the Lusk Congregational Church, 1911-1915, and now of the Old South Union Church of Weymouth, Mass., was the officiating minister. He was assisted by the Rev. Mr. Hawthorne, pastor of the First Presbytrian Church of Deposit and of which Mrs. Deuel had been a member.

Dr. Long paid high tribute to the work of Mrs. Deuel as a pioneer in the field of religion and education. He said that she had the ability to make friends and to keep them. In his own case she had kept in touch with him and his family through the years and would send news items about person that were mutually known. He gave illustrations to show that she had a deep affection for the people of Lusk, and was greatly
interested in the growth of the community.

Mrs. Deuel had been in her usual good health until a few weeks ago when she went to the Deposit Nursing Home where she gradually weakened until on Nov. 30 when she slept quietly away.

Mrs. Deuel was buried in the Riggs family lot in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Deposit and only a few blocks from where she lived so many years. She is survived by two nephews, Delancy McLaughlin of Sidney Center, N. Y., and James McLaughlin of Cherry Creek, N. Y.

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