| Biography |
- AUNT CLARA, Aunt Clara was different from her four older, gentle, soft-spoken sister s. She, the only one not stifled by the Schuster attitude on decorum, a nd I attribute that to not leaving been raised under Grandpa Schuster's th umb, being only 8 when he died. The only sister who could be brassy to t he Nth degree at times. She had her own ideas about church. Unlike the r est who were regular and faithful she said, "I go when I darn well feel li ke it." She could hold her own in a good argument, and shouted her side wi th gusto. That could have come from having only brothers as siblings clo se to her own age at home.
Uncle Mike was always good-natured, could cuss like a trooper, yet he w as the only uncle I ever saw open a car door seating the ladies in his com pany.
The photos did not photocopy well, and I hardly think of Aunt Clara witho ut thinking of Uncle Mike at the same time. On the family portrait s he is about twelve, and it appears that she had plenty attention shower ed upon her by older sisters ... Look of those long curls. Mom once sai d, "She was the most willful, destructive little pest in the world." Grand ma Klara, while not objecting to Uncle Mike, thought she was too you ng to get married just two months short of her 17th birthday, but guess w ho did anyway.
As I remembered them, they always lived in Quinter, though his "obit" sa ys they didn't move there until they'd been married a couple of years. Abo ut the time I was ten, or so, he worked on the section crew of the Union P acific railroad out of Collyer. He drove back and forth and occasional ly after work would stop and bring one or two of us along home with h im to Quinter to visit for a couple of days.
Aunt Clara was one of a kind. She seemed always to know the "spice" in t he family and area and regaled it with humor and relish. She must have be en a very good mother, for her own children did not give anyone any reas on to do the same number on her kids. Every once in awhile she'd get a ba tch of "nerves", which Mom said she got because she didn't have enou gh to do. Though I don't think she ever had the habit, she's the only o ne of Mom's sisters that I ever saw with a cigarette.
In the family there were four kids. Robert (Bob), Michael Jr. (Mickey), C larence (Red) and Verdella, their only daughter. It was at their house th at I first encountered firecrackers. The only time 1 went fishing as a k id was with Uncle Mike Red and Verdella. We went to the lake north of Qui nter, and I didn't catch anything. Maybe I didn't then, nor do I now, s ee any reason for sitting with mosquitoes biting, getting an awful sunbu rn waiting on the whims of a stupid fish ... especially if it's only a mud dy-tasting catfish, at that.
Verdella had the first pair of slacks worn in the family (in her generatio n). Aunt Clara in her's probably too. It was Aunt Clara that persuaded M om that they were much easier to care for in summer duds than ironing dres ses. Remember that this was a time when women weren't allowed to vis it a Catholic hospital wearing slacks (what rot!) Mom might have worn th em in her lifetime ... if she did it was rarely. At any rate we begged M om to make us some, and she did. Daddy called them, "slats." Rose's we re a colorful stripe, and Frances' and mine were navy background with r ed and white sailing ships on them.
Aunt Clara and Uncle Mike were an attractive dancing couple, and I can s ay from experience that Uncle Mike was incomparable as a dancing polka par tner. The rhythm seemed to surround him like an aura. (He was the only o ther of the Schuster relatives as Dad was, that was of the German--Russi an decent, and I think that bunch comes out of the womb dancing.) Mom sa id dancing was a part of the social life when she was a girl, though I don 't think to the extent that it was in Dad's world.
We share cousins with Aunt Clara's family. Daddy's brother John Kaiser ma rried Uncle Mike's older sister Theresia. And to this I might add th at a greater contrast in the two women couldn't be more apparent than t he differences in the two Aunts. I doubt that Aunt Theresia Kaiser ever w ore a dress shorter than mid-calf. She wore lots of black, stockings a nd all. She wore her hair in the center part braided style of South Russi a. Her first language was German all her life. Devout to the limit, and c ompletely under the dominance of Uncle John.... all this what Aunt Clara w as not.
I think, from this Aunt I learned something special too, about the zest f or living your own person. She still calls it like she sees it, and if y ou don't like it, TOUGH.
By Mary Kaiser Conard, 1988
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1906 - 1998 (92 years)
1930 Census
