This is the final installment in a series of posts concerning individual portraits taken of the children of Nathan and Mary McClain in 1898. More details about that set is in this previous post. The last child in the line-up is Clara Belle McClain.
Clara turned five years old in May 1898, so was five, or at least nearly so, in this portrait. Such a cutie!
I have absolutely nothing to base this on, but I have a suspicion that Clara was the “cute one” her whole life (if “cute” was even used that way 100 years ago). I love the photo of her with her sister in this post, for example. Also as the youngest of the aunts and uncles to Mom’s generation, I’ll bet she filled the role of the “fun aunt” who wasn’t that much older than a lot of her nieces and nephews.
She seems to have had a lot of different names. I have seen the name she was given at birth listed as “Nancy Clarabelle McClain” or “Nancy Clara Belle McClain.” As far as I know, she never used the name “Nancy” even in official contexts. It was always “Clara Belle McClain.” She also seems to have had the nickname “Peggy” within the family. I have come across at least two reference to her as “Peggy” or “Aunt Peggy.” One of those is a caption in Mom’s photo album. I mentioned it in the post for that photo, but wasn’t confident I was reading the caption correctly at the time. It wasn’t until I ran across another, clearer, reference to her as “Aunt Peggy” that I realized for sure what the caption was. The caption of a photo next to that one in Mom’s album seems to refer to a different nickname—not sure I’m reading it correctly—”Aunt Coddy,” maybe? Could that be an imitation of how some young child pronounced “Clara”? Just guessing—if I’m even reading the caption correctly.
Clara was probably eight years old when the family moved to Oregon, and possibly nine by the time they reached Oregon. She continued to live with her parents until her father passed away in 1919 and her mother in 1923. She turned 30 that year.
In May 1926 she married Bruce Clinton Willis. Interestingly Bruce was also from a family that started in Illinois and lived in Nebraska for a time before coming to Oregon. Bruce was a World War I veteran.
After marriage, Bruce and Clara lived briefly in Washington, where daughter Elizabeth (“Betty”) was born. But by 1930 they had settled in the Salem area. There they had son William.
Bruce and Clara lived in the Salem area for the rest of their lives, I believe. Clara was a principal driving force behind the McClain Thanksgiving dinners held for many years at Keizer Grange.
Bruce passed away in June 1967 (age 75). Clara passed away in September 1975 (age 82).
Concerning their children, once again I don’t have a lot of information:
- Betty married Richard (“Dick”) Goebel. I don’t have a date. There is a Richard Everett Goebel born in Salem in 1925 who may be this person. If so, he passed away in 1987 (age 62). Betty is listed on the 1990 address list for the cousins round-robin letter as living alone in Portland. It is remotely possible that she is still living as I write this. I could find no record of their having had children.
- William’s wife’s name was Retha. I don’t know when or where they were married. They seem to have had one son named Steve. William passed away in 1981 at age 51. Retha is listed on the 1990 address list for the cousins round-robin letter as living in Florida. It is possible that she is still living as I write this.
Perhaps you’ve been keeping count as we went through all the “cousins” (grandchildren of Nathan and Mary McClain). If not, let’s add them up: