La Grande, Union County, Oregon
Charles Aberley, formerly well known as a citizen and enterprising business man of La Grande died a few days ago in the Asylum for the insane of this State. Mr. Aberley has been an inmate of the Insane Asylum for several years. His case was one of peculiar symptoms and was evidently occasioned by softening of the brain. Up to near the time of his death, he retained a lingering consciousness of his identity and when called on, as he frequently was by his numerous friends and acquaintences, he seemd to realize momentarily, who he was and had been, but would at once drift into a state of semiconsciousness.
Poor Charley once so robust, the perfect model of physical manhood, the latter portion of his life proved to be a void, a blank. He leaves an estimable wife and lovely child to mourn his loss, the former with tender womanly affection, having clung to him like the green myrtle to the decayed trunk of the great oak, until it had been prostrated by the stormy hand of time.
Mountain Sentinel, Saturday
September 29, 1877