Ida May Current Bugbee was born at Brant, Saginaw Co., Mich., Mar. 18, 1877 and died at her home in Ithaca, Oct. 16, 1947, aged 70 years at her last birthday. She was the wife of brother Glen Bugbee, who has served as church elder at Ithaca for years.
At a very early age Ida May manifested a religious attitude of mind and heart. At fourteen she requested baptism by immersion, which was administered in mid-winter by cutting an opening in the ice to form an open baptistry for the event.
A few years after her baptism, a skeptically inclined relative said to her: “Ida, you are denying yourself of the worldly pleasures in which the majority of young people take part. What if you should find out at last that there is no such reward as you believe?” Her reply was deliberate and thoughtful and remarkable for her age: “Well, just to know that with God’s help, I have lived in harmony with what I know to be right and true, will be reward enough for me.”
Immediately after their wedding, Oct. 26, 1904, Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee took a trip to their new home in North Dakota. Eight years later they moved to Canada where they were among the pioneer settlers on the plains of southern Alberta, with the nearest railroad eighty miles away. It was during these years in the sparsely settled cattle country that Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee began studying the Bible anew, being encouraged to do so by the book “Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan” which they had purchased from a colporteur, Andrew Roedel, before leaving North Dakota. Mr. Bugbee relates the following experience: After they had both given much prayerful study to the teaching of the Bible on the subject of the Sabbath, he said to his wife: “I feel so much impressed from my study of the Bible, that I have decided that after I get a certain job done which will take a few months, I will then begin the observance of the true Lord’s Day or the Bible Sabbath.”
The character of Mrs. Bugbee was revealed again by her question. “Husband, do you really believe that from Friday at sundown to Saturday sundown is God’s holy Sabbath day?” His reply was that he surely did believe that. Then came her searching question: “Can we afford to dishonor and disobey God
and his holy law for even one day or one week?”
The result was that on their knees in their humble cabin, that very day, they promised the Lord that they would walk in all the light that had come to them and that might come to them in the future from His holy word, remembering the divine assurance: “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and ‘the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from all sin.” I John 1:7. They did not have the privilege of attending a Seventh-day Adventist church till a few years later when they moved to the state of Washington, where Mr. Bugbee later became the principal of one
of the Adventist academies.
The Bugbee family returned to Michigan in 1919 and have lived in Ithaca since 1938.
Mrs. Bugbee’s faith meant much to her and was reflected in her quiet thoughtfulness of not only her own large family but all with whom she became acquainted. Through the years she counted it a pleasure to befriend those who for any reason had few friends. Because of this a spiritual transformation has taken place in a number of families in the various communities where she lias lived. Four children preceded her in death, including a son who had been in the service of his country during the recent war and who had been a good witness for his Lord during that experience.
Those living to mourn her loss include the husband, a daughter, Iva who is a well known teacher in Gratiot county; three sons; Harrison of Beaverton, Thad of E. Lansing, and Wincett of Chesaning, four sisters and four brothers and many brothers and sisters in church fellowship and friends in many communities.
The funeral service was held in the Ithaca Adventist church on Sabbath, Oct. 18, and a message of real comfort from God’s word was given by the family’s longstanding friend, Elder M. E. Munger. Most appropriate music was supplied by Mrs. Arlo Sias of St. Louis and by Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Butler of Cedar Lake. The obituary and Scripture reading was read and prayer offered by the writer. Among the guests who filled the church to capacity were ministers and
church representatives of different denominations.
On a tombstone in a cemetery in Gratiot County are these words:
“Friends nor physicians could not save
These clear bodies from the grave;
Nor can the grave confine them there
When Christ shall call them to appear.”
E. R. Potter
Lake Union Herald
04 Nov 1947