Biography: Clara Mabel Wimer
Clara Mabel Wimer was born on 26 October 1891, the fifth of nine children born to Ike and Maggie Robinson Wimer. The Wimers were of German heritage, and the Robinsons were Scots Irish . Clara's parents were farmers, living in Slippery Rock Township between the village of West Liberty and Jacksville, in Worth township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. The farm lies along the creek that today is dammed to form Tammarak Lake, and was approached by a long lane off of Barron Road. Ike and Maggie Wimer had nine children, seven daughters and two sons. Clara was the fifth child. She was of medium height, slight of build, and she had a pleasant disposition.
In 1911 at age 20 she married Bert W. Wilson, who grew up on the neighboring farm. She and Bert lived for a time with Bert's parents, or possibly on a rented farm next to that of Bert’s parents. Here their first five, possibly six children were born between 1912 and 1926. Then they purchased the farm across the road, and continued raising their family there, having two daughters and four sons. The house stood in a shady wooded area, and the farm included some wetlands around the creek. They had horses and a cow, and the children kept a sheep and a pony in the small barn. They walked up the hill across the McClymmonds farm to attend McClymmonds school. Son Russell recalled being attacked by an owl as he walked down the lane from the house to the road one day. The children could walk down the creek and arrive at their Wimer grandparents' house. Doing this, Russell once stepped on a broken glass jar and cut his foot badly, which Grandma Wimer had to bandage up. On another occasion the oldest boy Ed, with a couple brothers along, drove a car down the road and decided to race with a horse back rider they met, the result being that the car turned over in the ditch. No one was hurt.
Clara raised her family there between the farms of her mother and her mother-in-law, with other Stoughton, Wimer and Wilson families nearby. Bert worked at the sawmill with his father, or later did work at the garage his father owned in Slippery Rock.
In 1929 Bert and Clara bought a farm one county to the north, near Nickleville in Venango County. The land was situated just off Rt. 38, north of the road between Nickleville and Rockland. Their oldest daughter Ruth would have been sixteen at the time of the move. Two years later, when Clara was thirty-nine, she had an infant daughter, Pauline, who died at birth.
By 1944 two of her children, Ruth and John, were married and a third,Russ, was engaged. She had five grandchildren, four belonging to Ruth M. Wilson:Ruth and one to John. Sons Ray and Russ had been drafted into service in WWII, and John was in officer's training school in South Carolina. Her youngest child, Allene, was still in high school. Clara was diagnosed with advanced cancer in January of that year, and died on 23 March, 1944. She was fifty-three years old. She was buried at Nickleville Presbyterian Cemetery beside her infant daughter.
