---

Clara Merwine was born on Sunday, the 15th. day of August, 1870, and died Sunday, the 5th. day of August, 1894.

Her early life was spent with her people on the farm lending them a helping hand and in attending the village school.  In childhood the most prominent traits of her character were untiring industry, modesty and self-sacrifice.  As she grew from childhood into the more mature years of young womanhood, there came to her an intense longing for a higher culture and a more advanced education but this was never permitted by her to stand in the way of what she thought to be her duty to her parents, her brothers and sisters, society, the church and the Sunday school.

After having received all the education the schools at home could give her, at the age of 19, she assumed the grave responsibility of teaching, and spent two consecutive years in the school room where she had been a diligent and obedient pupil from childhood.

In the spring and summer of 1890, she taught a term of school in one of the schools of Troy Township, this county.  After completing her work there, in order to more thoroughly equip herself for her work, she attended the Trio-State Normal School at Angola, Indiana.  Returning home she attended the Johnsville Union Schools during the fall and winter of 1891 and 1892.  In the spring and summer of 1892, she taught a school in her home township.  In July, 1892, in order to help some of those whom she loved, she went to the city of Columbus, Ohio, and taught in the Skidmore Union Schools, a district adjacent to that city.  While working there she won the hearts of old and young alike, who many times since then, with eager, anxious look, have asked, "How is Clara?".

Failing health compelled her to quit her work there;  and she again returned to the home o her childhood, where, amidst the surroundings of a glad, happy youth, and among a host of sustaining friends, she grew worse daily until she died, bequeathing to all who loved her a legacy more dear than the wealth of worlds, and that legacy is the memory of an unselfish life.

She united with St. John's Lutheran Church at the age of 16, and lived an earnest, consecrated life, loved by everybody who knew her.  She was buried in the Shauck's cemetery, Aug. 7, by her pastor and all the members of the Young People's Luther Alliance, who lovingly cast white flowers into the grave upon her coffin before it was covered.  "Safe in the arms of Jesus" could be appropriately sung of her while she was here and since she has gone.

-- J.N. Barnett

---

---

<< Back to Obituaries Index

<< Back to the Richland Co., Ohio Index