Franklin Marion Sullivan and Clara Ida Noe

Eva, Clara and Lorene Stay Family

After that Eva, Clara, and Lorene eventually moved down to 115 South Fourth St and lived there through the roaring twenties. Lorene was a highly intelligent young woman and loved school. She loved her home economics teacher, Mary McGraner, and prided herself in her handwriting. She was also to develop into a high-spirited teenager. She told me that she fell in love with Fernand the first time she laid eyes on him, in her early teens. Lorene had to quit school in the eleventh grade. The depression had hit Marietta as hard as any place, and it was difficult to make a living. She washed dishes at Braun's Restaurant for $1 a day, working 10 hours, six days a week.

Clara continued to work off and on at the Cigar factory, and grandma and "Red" as Lorene came to be known, often went to help her. The work was so demanding, they did this to keep her from loosing her job. Eva also took in mending and did cleaning when she could get it. They kept a garden and canned as much as they could. They played cards with decks so worn you could hardly tell what the cards were, Seven Up, Rummy, Poker and Pinochle. Everybody knew everyone else down on South Fourth Street. It was just a block in front of the Ohio River. The people were poor. They prided themselves in not taking welfare. When they could, they went to dances at the local lodges.

Clara had a boyfriend or two, but she never remarried. One was called "Gitter" Lemon, and he was especially fond of "Red." That's where she got her name, because his hair was red, too, and he liked to pass her off as his daughter. But eventually he broke up with Clara and married another woman. He told my mother that he wanted to marry Clara but that she was the meanest woman he had ever met.

Between the time when my mother quit school and got married were the heart of the Depression years. As soon as she married Fernand, Clara and Eva became more or less wards of the family. They always had a place to stay that dad provided for them. Eva got to see all her great grandchildren. I was 11, Tom was 5 and Vicki was 2 when she died. Clara and Eva lived over at 103 North Fourth, just around the corner from our family home at 317 Greene St. When Eva died, Clara came to stay with us. It was 1951. She lived thirty more years and saw four of her five great grandchildren. Vicki, my sister was several months pregnant with her third son, TJ, when Clara died at age 91.