Dorothy (Clark) Burditt

I was born the oldest child of Leroy (Better known as Roy) and Alma Clark and I sleep in the same room I was born in over 60 years ago.

I have three sisters: Thelma (Gros-jean) in Wooster, Ohio; Emma Louise (Thomas), Bowling Green, 0.; and Evelyn (Shafer), Defiance, O.; and one brother Delbert in Millbrae, Calif., all living. My brother Robert died of polio

in 1948 leaving his wife Dora and two children. Another brother Albert died at a little over 19 mo. old; a half brother Darwin was killed just north of McClure in 1928; and a half sister Fay died leaving her husband Bill Light.

My husband Harold is fire chief of McClure and has been for 20 years. He worked for the telephone co. in McClure several years as lineman.

We have two sons: Arthur (better known as Bill) of McClure and wife Barbara have two sons, James and Roger; Bill and Barb became E. M. T.'s in June, 1975. Our other son Robert lives in Napoleon with his wife Karen and two children, Daniel and Dana. Robert has worked for the telephone co. at Napoleon nearly 15 years; Karen worked there as an operator for 6 years.

My father Roy was a lineman here in McClure from June, 1910, to April, 1936. And I have been an operator at McClure for over 20 yrs.

I have a furlough paper that was written for my grandfather (on my mother's side), Henry A. Anthony, August, 1865, when he was a private in the Company of the 196th regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

A cousin, Ernest Clark writes the last log cabin he remembers was 2 miles east where our Uncle Steve Clark lived. He says Harley Weaver a neighbor had the first radio. Everyone went to hear it on Saturday evening.

Albert and May Clark, our grandparents, owned the farm east of McClure (where Frank Johnson now lives); our grandparents cleared the farm of timber and built. The barn was built about 1912.

They had nine children: 2 girls, Kate and Anna; seven boys, Steve, Jed, Tom, Art, John, Press, and Roy which are all gone now. And all lived to a fairly good age.

In 1912 a caravan of gypsies went east from McClure in about 50 wagons and stole foods as they went. He wrote that he remembered Uncle Steve Clark purchasing a new 1918 model T Ford touring car and cut a tire on a butcher knife in the lane to the house, size 30x31/2 and it cost a lot to replace it in those days. When Grandpa Clark would be on the road with his horses and buggy and saw a car coming, he would have to get out and take hold of the horse till the car got passed as it was afraid of the car.

Uncle Tom planted the walnut trees that still stand along the farm east of McClure on Route 6 where Albert and Mary Clark and family lived so many years ago.

Submitted by Dorothy Clark Burditt