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Clara Alice (Wilson) Pierce, was the seventh child of James Harvey and Susanna Martha (Martin) Wilson. She was born on 2 May 1872 in Prairie Township, Fremont County, Iowa, about 6 miles east of Sydney. Clara’s life was tragically short, and she apparently lived all of it in Fremont County. Census records show her in her parents’ home in 1880 and 1885, along with six of her siblings. Clara married John Edward Pierce at Riverton, Iowa (also in Fremont County) on 23 February 1893. John (apparently named Johann at birth) had been born in Swedona, Mercer County, Illinois, on 14 January 1869, the son of Charles and Caroline (Anderson) Pierce. As a young boy he had moved, with his parents and one sister, to Farragut, in Prairie Township. The Fremont County Herald (2 March 1893, p. 4 and p. 8) congratulated Clara and John, and described them as “two of the leading young people of Prairie township.” A couple of weeks before the wedding, John had acquired a farm adjacent to the Wilsons, which is where he and Clara settled down. The Iowa State census of 1895 lists their household immediately after that of James and Susanna Wilson, and also shows their 9-month-old daughter, who turned out to be their only child:
The official date for that census was January First. Sadly, John died of consumption three weeks later, 21 January 1895. He was buried in Chambers Cemetery. Clara apparently moved back in with her parents after John’s death, and is shown in their household, along with Edith, in the 1900 census. (The census mistakenly lists Clara under her maiden name, Wilson, even though it lists her marital status as “widowed.”) In July of that year, 1900, Clara’s father died. Eight months after that, Clara herself contracted pneumonia and died on 4 April 1901. Her obituary, from the Fremont County Herald, is shown below.
Strangely, Clara was not buried next to her husband, but instead was buried near her father, at Sidney Cemetery. Her death left 7-year-old Edith as an orphan, and even though the above obituary says that Edith had been “intrusted” to Clara’s brother Charles, it was apparently Clara’s mother, Susanna, who took on the responsibility of raising Edith. The 1910 census identifies Edith as an “adopted daughter” living in the home of “Anna” Wilson in Paonia, Delta County, Colorado. If you can suggest any corrections to the information above or provide any further details about the lives of Clara, John, or Edith, please contact me at the address shown in the image below:
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