“One for whom over 6,000,000 of his fellowmen had cast their votes for the second highest office in their power to bestow; whom his own state had ever delighted to honor; who had for four years been the leader of his, the dominant, party in the senate; who had, through a great world crisis, been an intimate friend and trusted counselor of the president; and who had measured up to the full stature of a man under every test which high office and trying circumstances could apply to him, was laid to rest in the presence of a few friends and neighbors and with a burial service of a sweet and beautiful simplicity appropriate to the strength and gentleness of his exalted character. “Had time and circumstances permitted it, the nation would have chosen to give a patent expression to its sense of loss; his former colleagues and followers in the congress would have wished to pay the tribute of their presence, and his casket would have been covered with a profusion of flowers from the thousands who had learned to love as well as honor him. “But his brief illness was not known to many, and even to these his sudden death was a sad surprise. So when it was decided to bring his body to his summer home in Carvin’s Cove for burial only a few friends, made during his occasional brief stays in Virginia, and his neighbors there in the mountains had opportunity to attend his funeral. “These, numbering about 200, assembled at the Kerncliffe home where the services were conducted under the direction of Dr. George Braxton Taylor, minister at the nearby Enon Baptist Church, and in conformity with the senator’s well-known love of simple and unpretending things. A passage from the Scriptures read by a young man, friend and tutor to his sons; a prayer by Doctor Taylor, the singing of ‘Abide With Me’ and ‘Come Ye Disconsolate’ by a few of the ladies from Hollins, a few words from the heart of his friend, Mr. Lucien H. Cocke, telling of his life and its great service, followed by the removal of the body to the grave, where Mr. Joseph A. Turner closed the service with appropriate prayer, and the body of John W. Kern was laid to its last and perfect rest. “It was at sunset above the waters of Carvin’s Creek, on one of the western foothills of Tinker Mountain that he was buried; there he himself had spent many of the days of his early youth; there he had hoped to find an age of rest from his long life of generous and untiring service to his country; and there he sleeps to-day.