HOUG, Clara Maria 1886-1893

HOUG

Posted By: Karen L. Robertson (email)
Date: 1/31/2011 at 18:49:28

#1:

Clara Maria Houg, eldest daughter of Prof. and Mrs. Houg, passed away last Monday night at about 11 o'clock, after a very painful illness. Her age was 7 ears, 11 months, and 14 days. She was a very bright girl and the hope of her parents. She was taken at first with pneumonia, but later brain fever set in and found her wasted form as easy victim. The sympathy of the whole community goes with the parents in their terrible affliction. The funeral will be held at the Norwegian Lutheran church, on Friday May 5, 1893 at 1 o'clock p.m. and the services will be conducted in both Norweagian and English.

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#2:

Church and Burial records of First Lutheran

Date of Birth May 17, 1886
Date of Death May 1, 1893
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#3:

Nils Davidson's mother came over from St. Ansgar this week to attend the funeral of little Clara. Mrs. Davidson will be 70 years old next month.

[Worth County Index]

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#4:

CLARA'S ORIGINAL TOMBSTONE FOUND IN AUSTIN
(FROM ROCHESTER POST BULLETIN)

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We should all inspire such interest.

When the family at 306 S. Main St. in Austin discovered an abandoned tombstone in the undergrowth in their backyard, it set th ewheels in motion.

The Joblinskes turned the stone over to local law enforcement, who discovered it used to mark the grave site of a young girl buried at First Lutheran cemetery in St. Ansgar, Iowa.

Her name was Clara Maria Houg, and she died two weeks before her seventh birthday in 1893.

According to her obituary, "She was a very bright girl and the hope of her parents. She was taken at first with pneumonia, but later brain fever set in and found her wasted form an easy victim." Funeral services, it continues, "will be conducted in both Norwegian and English."

Clara, who was Helene and Halsten Houg's firsborn, also had a brother and sister who died in infancy.

Another brother and sister lived to adulthood. Monrad Houg, who was born three yeras after Clara, died, lived to be 96. He spent most of his life in St. Ansgar.

"I definitely know who you're talking about," Said Melvin Schroeder, but he'd never heard the story of Clara. "Monrad was my grandfather's partner, then my father's partner in business," said Schroeder, who continues in the business today: Schroeder and Sites Funeral Home. They handled Monrad's services and burial back in 1992. He, too, is buried in the Lutheran cemetery.

Clara, however, is buried in lot 54 "in the older part of the cemtery, where lots are filled by grandpas and grandmas and so forth," said Jan Wold, cemetery sexton. She and her husband keep the books for the cemtery, and she knows right where Clara is. "We have maps," World said. "On one side is the plots and on the other side is a listing of the burials. We update it every year."

According to Barb Meitner, church secretqary, the grave has been marked with a new stone, though no one seems to know when that happened.

Nels Golberg, who is president of the congregation, learned Monday about the discrovery in Austin. The stone was returned to the church that day.

"Someone maybe took the old stone and didn't know what to do with it," Golberg said. "I don't look for anything intentional," such as vandals. There's just so many things that can happen over the years," he said.

Article from Post Bulletin, circa July 14, 2011
Written by: Kay Fate
kfate@postbulletin.com -- 507-434-7343

[Article redacted and posted by K. Kittleson 7/2011]