Later years

Labadie's later years were spent publishing new booklets on his old printing press, which was by that time considered antiquated but quaint. Forced to retire from his job at the Water Works Department in 1920, Labadie had no pension. Jo and Sophie again relied on the benevolence of their friend Carl Schmidt, whom they often visited at his vacation home, "Walhalla," ( 132, 133) on Lake Huron.

After Sophie died in 1931, their son, Laurance, spent the next two summers with Jo at Bubbling Waters, and in 1932 took him to visit the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan one final time. Jo Labadie died ( 71, 80) on October 7, 1933, at Receiving Hospital in Detroit. He was 83 years old. He insisted on a simple funeral with no ceremony, although all his surviving friends attended. Jo and Sophie are buried side by side in Parkview Cemetery near Detroit, at Five Mile and Farmington Roads. In keeping with their tradition of simplicity and modesty in their lives, no stones mark their graves.

When I am dead
Waste not yourself in either grief or joy because of so,
As I'll not know,
And recompense, the spur to all we do,
Will never come to you,
Except as one in sounding glen bewails or sings
And echo brings on airy wings
The messages himself sent out.

--Jo Labadie