Blanche Irene (SHOEMAKER) CLARK

CLARK, SHOEMAKER, SABIN, SHIRLEY, CASHMAN, CARTWRIGHT, HOPKINS, BANNER, SCHOCH

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/3/2011 at 02:07:07

A Biographical Memorial Tribute to
Blanche Irene Shoemaker Clark

1900 ~ 1974

by Mary A. Clark Banner
and Raymond V. Banner

Family Background

Blanche Irene Shoemaker was born in Benton county, Iowa 31 March 1900. She was one of sixteen children of Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. and Mary Jane Sabin. Nine of her siblings lived to adulthood. They were Malvern, Jr., Ernest, Earl, Ethel, Harold, Leila, Bert, Everett and Clifford.

The Shoemaker’s were of German nationality. Her grandfather, Daniel W. Shoemaker, was born 22 May 1833 in Pennsylvania and came to Benton county, Iowa when twenty-two years of age, making his home in the Luzerene community. He was first married to Sarah Shirley, of whom Malvern, Sr. appears to have been the first child. Apparently his wife Sarah died sometime before or by 1880, as the 1880 Federal Census shows Daniel W. Shoemaker and three children living in the home of his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Charles and Catherine Shirley of LeRoy township, Benton county, Iowa.

Shortly after this time Daniel W. Shoemaker married Miss Jane Cashman of Marengo, Iowa and had additional children by her, for a total of eleven children. Daniel, quite deaf in old age, was killed 25 August 1911 near Luzerene when hit by a train while walking along the railroad track bed.

Daniel had taught school for many years, but had lived a retired life for 26 years prior to his death at age 78. He is buried in the cemetery at Luzerene.

Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. was born 27 January 1866 at Luzerene, Iowa. On 4 July 1893 he was married to Mary Jane Sabin at Marengo. He was 27 and she 18 at the time of their marriage. Mary Jane was born in May 1875.

The Sabin line and the families they married into have been traced back to the 1640s in Massachusetts. The Sabin line is supposed to have immigrated from France.

Mary Jane’s father, John Sabin (2 September 1828--5 November 1898) was born in Steuben, New York and died in Marengo, Iowa. He married Mary A. (Cashman) Cartwright (24 June 1843--27 February 1900) in Marengo, Iowa on 1 November 1868.

She was born in Illinois. Mary Jane’s siblings were Emma G., Calvin M., Nancy Anna, Martha A., and Cecilia E.

Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. was a tall man with wavy blonde hair and his wife Mary Jane Sabin was short with black hair.

The large family of Malvern and Mary Jane Sabin Shoemaker lived mainly in the Iowa counties of Iowa, Benton and Union; primarily eking out a living by farming.

Mary Jane Sabin Shoemaker died 12 September 1924 in the home of her daughter Ethel (Mrs. Link Hopkins) at 900 N. Birch Street in Creston, Iowa. She is buried in the same plot at Graceland Cemetery, S.E. edge of Creston, as are her daughter Ethel and son Harold.

Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. moved back to Benton county after the death of his wife and lived out most of the rest of his life in the Belle Plaine community. His granddaughter Mary Clark Banner (daughter of Edward and Blanche Shoemaker Clark) remembers as a girl being appointed secretary to answer the beautiful handwritten letters he wrote the Clark family. Mary also remembers as a girl of about seven or eight (mid 1920s) of going on a visit with her family to the log cabin of Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. on the bank of the Iowa River. There he raised a wonderful garden in the sandy soil. During these years he raised his three youngest sons, Bert, Everett, and Clifford.

Malvern lived his last years with his bachelor son Bert of Belle Plaine. He died at a hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa 6 June 1946. He was buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Belle Plaine, Iowa.

Blanche Shoemaker Meets Edward Clark

According to Mrs. (Frances) Malvern Shoemaker, Jr., the Malvern Shoemaker, Sr. family lived on a farm N.E. of Ellston, Iowa, in Ringgold county, for about one year. It is probably during this time that the young teenage daughter Blanche Irene first met Edward Clark.

Edward Clark was born 19 April 1878, son of Isaac Clark and Julia Lovina Schoch, and had lived nearly all of his life in Ringgold county. When he met the young Blanche Shoemaker he was a mature man twenty-two years older than she. Edward had lost his first wife Bessie Mae Powell, in childbirth in 1901. Then when his second wife, Esther Hopkins, died in January 1912 he had been left with six small children, all under age seven.

Blanche Shoemaker met Edward Clark in Ellston, likely at some festival. Edward Clark operated a "Knocking over the Wooden Dolls" concession stand at local carnivals during this period of time, and this might have provided the occasion. Blanche was with another girl and they were discussing Edward Clark. She threw a corncob at him to gain his attention.

Later she went to work as a housekeeper in his home. Although the two youngest children of Edward and Esther Hopkins Clark, Della and Lucy, were being raised in the nearby home of their grandparents, Isaac and Lovina Clark; nevertheless, the young Blanche Shoemaker had four young children to care for as well as the normal duties of a housekeeper. Blanche had already done household work for a John May family back in Benton county, so she was not unaccustomed to such duties.

Marriage and Home Life

On 21 March 1916 Edward N. Clark and Blanche Irene Shoemaker were married at the Ringgold county courthouse in Mount Ayr, Iowa, just a few days short of Blanche’s sixteenth birthday.

Edward called his young wife Bonnie, and she was known by this nickname to people throughout her life.

Edward and Blanche had six children. They were Inez, Mary, Dorothy, Alta, Roy, and Isaac. The birth dates ranged from late 1916 through 1936.

Edward and Blanche lived all their married life on five different farms. Their first four homes were all in Liberty township, Ringgold county and were all within a two mile radius of Johnston cemetery. The third of these farms, just south of Johnston cemetery, was lost in the Great Depression of the 1930s. These depression years were especially hard for the family. Dry weather contributed to the bad economic conditions, making it difficult to raise field crops and gardens.

Blanche was concerned and strict in raising her daughters. She sent her children to Sunday school at the nearby rural High Point Methodist Church.

The responsibilities of her step-children, the birthing and care of her own children, and the work of a farm wife were hard on her health. She had complications with milk leg fever after the birth of each of her last three children, which resulted in ulcerated legs. On 16 December 1937, the day her grandson Raymond Banner was born, Blanche had her first attack of arthritis. This disease slowly crippled her over a period of years.

Religious Faith

In the early 1940s Blanche began listening on radio to the Rev. Theodore Epp of the Back to the Bible Broadcast out of Lincoln, Nebraska. This resulted in a period of deep conviction of sin and ultimately a dramatic conversion experience. For the rest of her life her devotion to Christ was the most important thing in her life.

Her health and circumstances prevented her from attending church. But her Christian faith went very deep as did her love for the Bible. She shared her faith with relatives and neighbors, often to indifference or hostility, but with eventual results and influence among different ones in the family circle and down the family tree.

Last Farm Home

During World War II Edward and Blanche Clark purchased a 120 acre farm in Tingley township, 1/2 mile east of Highway #169 and seven miles north of the junction of Highways #2 and #169 at Mount Ayr. Only Roy and Isaac, of their children, were still living at home. Roy left for service in World War II late in 1944. Edward and Blanche lived at this farm home until Edward Clark died, while working, on 7 July 1958.

All through the years of their marriage in all their homes they maintained a generous welcome to returning children and families, relatives and various homeless people.

Blanche Moves to Mount Ayr

After the death of Edward Clark the farm land and goods were sold and Blanche moved to Mount Ayr. Upon the dividing of the estate and paying of her debts her financial assets were meager.

She lived first in a rented house in Mount Ayr until a suitable house could be found. Blanche purchased a small three room house with a tiny bath and entry hall. This home was located at 802 E. Washington.

By this period in her life she was confined to the use of a four wheel walker with a seat. With the walker Blanche was able to maneuver about her little house and manage her everyday needs. Her daughter Mary Banner, living about eight miles away at rural Benton, Iowa, attended to such necessities as grocery shopping, clothes washing and bathing. In November of 1965 Mary moved to 602 N. Hayes Street in Mount Ayr, about three blocks from her mother’s home. Several neighbors were also helpful to Blanche during these Mount Ayr years, especially Georgia Fox and Gladys Reynolds.

After Blanche’s inheritance money ran out it was necessary for her to go on county welfare, something she dreaded but could not avoid. During the 1960s she was living on $100 a month. Even on this pittance she tithed, dividing her giving among the Christian radio ministries of Back to the Bible, Chapel of the Air, and the Webber family Southwest Church of the Air.

Pastors, such as Rev. Ward Campbell of the Free Methodist Church and Rev. David Nettleton of the Regular Baptist Church enjoyed visiting her. Her little home was a peaceful retreat to various people.

Last Years and Heritage of Blanche Shoemaker Clark

It became increasingly more difficult for Blanche to live by herself. On 23 September 1971 she was moved into Clearview Nursing Home in Mount Ayr by her daughters Inez and Mary. Some months after this her daughter Inez, now widowed, moved to Mount Ayr. Her proximity provided extra assistance and comfort to Blanche.

Blanche remained in Clearview Home until her death in the Ringgold County Hospital in Mount Ayr on 25 March 1974.

Blanche Irene Shoemaker Clark was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery [16-G] in Mount Ayr in the plot where her grandson Eugene David Banner was already buried. She died with almost nothing of this world’s goods, but she left behind the memory of a sweet and good life. She died with the faith of "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven."

Her daughter Mary Banner and grandson Raymond Banner offer this biographical tribute to her quiet obscure life of duty, patience in suffering and spiritual devotion. We expect to lie on either side of her in death, in hope of Resurrection at Christ’s coming.

Submission and photograph courtesy of Raymond V. Banner, December of 2010

Ringgold Obituaries maintained by Tony Mercer.
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