all three services, and it
saved me the embarrassment of listening to eulogies, and saved
others from having to deliver them! But everyone was fine about
it. They decorated the Altar with gorgeous red roses, and me with
my red Seminary hood (He wore his Doctor's hood rarely and always
looked rather sheepish when asking his secretary to take it out
of the safe!), and we had the two choirs at eleven o'clock, and
lovely music at all the services. So the day went well, and we're
all glad it is well over.

In a letter to another friend he said:

It wasn't easy to speak and to face the services, and that they
meant the real end of my rectorship, my active ministry. There
were dear friends and very loyal parishioners there. And I think
you know my love for Christ Church and for Cincinnati, and my
inexpressible appreciation of all that this church and city have
given me. It is terribly hard to try to realize that after this
summer I shall no longer be rector of Christ Church--and all that
that has meant and means--and in very deep gratitude I saw the
many, and my mind and heart were very full. Indeed I hope I shall
not "retire" from the friendships, and from the life of the
people and city. Thank you more than I can say for what only you
could so write. I have had a very rare opportunity, and very
privileged forty years, and I hope the coming years--or weeks or
months, whatever God wills--will bring in their own way the same
high things and find me worthy of them, and chief of them, worthy
of your friendship and faith.

He had given the church and city a lifetime of service, loyalty, and
love, and the place he held in the affections of his people had been
abundantly made known to him.

In July before the last Sunday he was scheduled to preach, he was
stricken by a heart attack, and so his ministry came to a close without
further sadness of farewell. He spent a few weeks in the hospital, and
improved sufficiently to journey to his beloved Cranberry Isles
accompanied by his wife and daughter. But a doctor, knowing what others
did not realize, broke down and wept when Mr. Nelson left the hospital.
His friends and he himself felt confident that a protracted rest would
do the work of healing. In August he sustained another and a more severe
attack, and as the chilling, autumn winds blew in from the Atlantic they
brought him to the Phillips House in Boston. He saw no one at