Viola Rory Clark, 1842-1921

CLARK, RORY, VANDEMARK

Posted By: Clay County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 1/31/2013 at 16:52:06

Mrs. Viola Amy Clark, one of Clay county's original pioneers, died at the age of 78 at the old homestead in Summit township, where she had lived the past fifty years. Death was caused by pneumonia and a slight stroke of paralysis. Funeral services were conducted in the Evangelical church of Summit township by Rev. A.K. Henning and interment was made in the Summit cemetery.

The late Mrs. Clark was born in Huron county, Ohio, August 25, 1842. Since both her parents died when she was but three years old and her only brother enlisted and was killed in the Civil war, Viola Amy Rory was reared by her maternal grandparents. December 24, 1863, she was married to George Wellington Clark in Dane county, Wisconsin.

Seven years after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Clark moved to Iowa and took up a homestead in Summit township. Here their children, Walter J. Clark, Jay G. Clark and Mrs. Ethel Viola Vandemark, were born. Mr. Clark died March 12, 1891, but the children are all living in Summit township. There are also thirteen grandchildren and a large number friends and relatives in the same community.

Speaking of Mrs. Clark's life, Mr. Henning, who has known her for years, said: "For the last thirty-three years Mother Clark has been more or less tied to her home due to physical ailments, but even during these years she has endeared herself to many a heart through her long suffering and service. The hardships of pioneer life developed in her that sympathetic feeling for others which makes so many of our American women so renowned. Her very name "Mother Clark," will always hold in our memories, her kind devotion to her fellowmen."

Source: Spencer News Herald, Spencer, Clay County, Iowa; January 27, 1921.

Interment in Evergreen cemetery
 

Clay Obituaries maintained by Kris Meyer.
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