Family History 102

Clara Bell Davis Gaylord was my father's mother.

Information about what she was doing before she became John's wife is not available to this writer. But what we do know is that she and her sister, Cora, were the youngest siblings in their large family and that they were close all her life.

Their father had been a pioneer in the Otter Tail Minnesota area settling there after his service in the Army during the Civil War and was an interesting character.










Clara age 22

She married the 45 year-old John Augustus eight days after her 20th birthday becoming step-mother to Garner who was almost 13 years old at the time of his father's second marriage.












Stan and Clara

She was made a widow at the age of 38 with 4 children to raise.  My father remembered pushing his brother, Warren, in a stroller and walking with his mother while on her meter reading route.




Her death was a shock to everyone. She had traveled with her brother-in-law, John Bixby, (Cora's husband) to a doctor's office to have her tonsils removed. It was a routine surgery in the early 1920's.  She and  her family expected her to return home later that day.  All went as expected until it was time to revive her from the anesthesia.

She took her last breath was the doctor was cleaning up. She apparently gave no sign before hand of being in distress. Her brother-in-law, John, was in the room with her at the time.

It's difficult for us to know much about Clara today.  There are no letters or personal affects remaining in the family.  But, if the integrity and character of her children can be a testimony of her strength and loving kindness, then we, the children of her children can know that she was a special woman and that her love continues to live.