   
                                             MY BEGINNINGS part 1
     By Clara Stotler

                                                    My earliest memory.
    I thought I would start with what I believe is my first memory.  My family lived in a nice house in St. Louis County. I remember playing with my dolls and buggy in a hall when it got so dark that my Mom had to turn on the light.  It was during the day and a storm came up.  We were living in St. Louis County.  I do not know exactly how old I was but I Think I was about three years old.
   I have tried to think of what may have been my next memory.  I remember my father hitting a rooster on the head with a hammer because he jumped at me.  It didn't do any harm to the rooster or me.
   I guess soon after my brother was born my mom and dad lost their house in St. Louis county.  The Big Depression.  We were in rentals soon after that because I do remember my mother putting our cribs legs in tin cans of kerosene to keep the bed bugs from crawling up to us.
   I do remember my parents coming into our room one morning and saying "Guess what we have?  Chicken Pox." 
   Next memory at this place that I remember is running from the corridor between the houses and getting knocked out by a big boy who collided with me at the intersection that I ran onto the sidewalk in front.  He was running on the sidewalk.
   The next vivid memory is an Easter that we got a bunny rabbit.  I do not remember the address but I must have been under five years old, because my brother and I got the measles when I was 5 yrs old and he was 2 1\2 yrs old.  We were living in rooms behind what we now refer to as mom and pop stores.  We both had to be moved to our Grandmothers house or the health department would have closed the store.
                                                   Where I grew up.
    We lived in St. Louis, MO and then the week I was 7 yrs. old we moved to the country seven and a half miles from Rolla, MO and about 116 miles west of St. Louis, MO on highway 66.  My Dad was going to California when his car broke down.  The mechanic that worked on the car sold him 5 acres of wooded land.  I do not know any details but my dad then preceded to clear the front acreage and started building a house.  We, my mother, brother and I moved into the unfinished house the week I turned 7 years old.  I remember we covered the window openings with bed spreads and quilts.  I do not remember much else.  But we had no electricity or water on the place and we had an outhouse for a bathroom.  But my brother and I had the woods and creeks as our playgrounds.  In the fall when the tree leaves where all on the ground we would make outlines of houses and forts with the leaves piled high for walls, and in the summer we would ride the young trees.  We would pull a young tree down and hang on as we pushed ourselves up and the certain size young tree would pull us up off the ground.  I would get a doll from my grandmother; we called her Oma every Christmas.  I would name them and they would be as old as the time I had them.  I played tea time and church with them.  My brother and I had 4 kittens.  The mother cat got killed and my brother and I  each claimed 2 apiece.  I had Bumbsie and Pudgy and Frank had Friskie and Pepper.  Each of us had a male and female.
   We did have a big red wagon and we had to carry water from the schoolyard pump.  Mom would pull it and we would push because there were some hills on the old gravel road to the schoolyard.  My mother had a cousin who was a very good baker and I think he owned a bakery in St. Louis.  They were Ella and George Muller.  Anyway they would come to see us once a year and they gave us big tins and that is what we filled with the water from the schoolyard pump.
    I went to Perkins school which was a two room school house.  I went there the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades.  This is where I got a Typhoid shot one time and the first time I fainted, I had the shot and sat down at my desk.  I must have been in 5th or 6th grade because my desk was on the upper grades side room.  Anyway the lower grade teacher was standing beside my desk and when I fainted I fell toward her and she moved, thinking I wanted to get at my books in the desk and I fell 
onto the floor.  She felt so bad but I didn't know anything that happened until they were picking me up off the floor.
   My Aunt Viola and my Grandmother would come out to see us every Christmas and that was a special time.  We went to church on Christmas Eve and all the children in Sunday School had pieces to say.  Bible verses.  Christmas story.
  We had a neighbor who had a chicken ranch, she lost her husband early on and she ran the chicken ranch by herself.  I really think she helped save our lives during the depression as she would send big quart jars of eggs and also chickens to us whenever she had some.  The eggs were from soft shelled eggs and they couldn't sell so she would collect them in these jars.  My mom could cook with them and make scrambled eggs sometimes.  The chickens were ones hat had what she called blowouts, that meant they would lay too big an egg and she would have to kill them.  My brother and I would go visit her and my mother would go also when she had a little time.  She was about the only friend we had in the area.  Her name was Julia Johnson.  She had a couple dogs that would sing with her.  That was so funny.  The first time I ever had a turkey was at her house on one Thanksgiving.
   One time my Dad bought 12 ducks.  When they grew up one of them had a raspy voice and my dad decided something was wrong with it, so he killed that one.  Later he found out that one was the only male drake in the whole bunch.  My Dad really liked to build.  He built 4 complete houses on our property which was 5 acres.  Also he built 2 cabins, one wash house that had the electric pump for water after we got electricity we used kerosene lamps of which it was my job to wash the thin glass lamp shades.  I was always afraid I would break one and cut my hands although I never did.  We had a store in front of the house that we lived in the longest time.  We never had a telephone or a living room while I was living at home.  My Dad sold off two of the houses with a parcel of the property.  He also built a two room out house.  One side for the women and the other side for the men.  I am sure this was the influence of coming from a city.  I do not remember how old I was when we got electricity and then of course that is when we got the electric water pump.
    My brother and I went to the Immanuel Lutheran school when I was in the third grade, I think he was in the first.  Then the school closed.  This is where I met and became friends with Mary belle Vitzthum.  After the school closed we only saw each other on Sundays at church and Sunday School.  Then I went to Perkins, a two room Country School.  When I was in the 4th grade a classmate named Mary Lee Wilson died.  She stepped on a cut off sprout of a very small
tree and got blood poisoning.  They did not have tetanus shots yet.  If she had had a tetanus shot she probably would not have died.  The whole school went to her funeral.  The very best teacher I ever had was Blanch Moore.  I would sit and watch all the older classes recite and listen to them and learned from doing that.  The year Mrs. Moore was let go, She told my mother she would have skipped me a grade if she would have been coming back.  But she was afraid the next teacher would not know the things I needed help in like she would.  So she didn't do it.  Then in my 8th grade year the Lutheran School opened up again so my brother and I went to it.  The funny thing was since there were only 7 of us in 7th and 8th grades they decided to teach 7th grade one year all together and the 8th grade the next year.  However we 3 in the 8th  grade actually never got 8th grade at all that way.  I do not know what they were thinking about.  We had to take a test to be able to go to high school and luckily all 3 of us were smart and passed it and went on to high school.
    My friendship was cemented with Mary Belle Vitzthum when we both went once again to the Lutheran School in Rolla.  Her father drove the bus from the other side of town to the school and from where we lived I believe since there were only 5 of us the pastor drove us into town in his car also.
    I really loved that year and felt for the first time like I belonged to the whole group in school.  We would play baseball at recess and I really liked that.  Mary belle and I would spend weekends at each others homes.  I found out that some families were different than mine.  I really liked to spend time at the Vitzthum's.  Mr. Vitzthum would sing and participate with the family.  There was laughter and fun and Mrs. Vitzthum would make homemade bread and churn butter and always bring up a quart of canned cherries from the cellar because she knew that was my favorite.  She did this every time I came there to stay overnight for years and years.

Clara was a very dear friend and neighbor.  Have wonderful memories of times spent with Arthur, Clara and their daughter Tina.  She is very much loved and missed.  Will see her in the sweet by and by.

Grandma was always there for me even through the most terrible times.She  always was asking about Nicole and Elisha,her great grand children. Grandma would drive me crazy taking pictures of me on holidays, with food in my mouth!:) But that was grandma, always wanting to make memories and to be remembered. Many talks that came from the heart with great wisdom will be missed. And since the kids were born she's been the first one I thought of when I had their pictures taken, she was so eager to get them. That's what grandmas do, they show interest and love, and for that she will be dearly missed, and remembered often. I thank God for the blessing of many years with her.The kids and I will continue to pray for peace and comfort for the rest of the family.

Prayers for my nieces and nephews. Clara (my sister-n-law taught me about cake decorating on a trip to Colorado in 1974. She is now with my brother Arthur.

RIP Aunt Clara - you will be missed. Our Family grieves with your children on your passing.

Offering our deepest condolences during this difficult time.


My thoughts and prayers are with you all during this time. Praying that God will give you the peace and comfort that only He can. Love, Linda Warren Toppings

OBITUARY

Clara O. Stotler

14 April, 1928 – 4 September, 2013

Howell, Edwards, Doerksen with Rigdon-Ransom Funeral Directors

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