OBITUARY DE SOTO EAGLE EYE, DEC. 27, 1917 PAGE 1
Clara Moore Ward was born June 6, 1838, in Stratford, Delaware county, Ohio, where she lived until womanhood.
She was married to Joseph Tuttle Ward, June 9, 1859, at her home in Stratford. The following September she emigrated with her husband to Kansas City where they lived for several years.
She united with the Methodist Episcopal Church early in life, and on arriving in Kansas City she became a charter member of the Walnut Street Methodist Church of Kansas City which has developed into one of the largest and strongest churches in the West. The pioneer minister of this great church once remarked to Mrs. Martin Kennedy, one of the early settlers of Johnson County known to the present generation as the mother of Mrs. Jennie Teas: "I didn't know when Mrs. Ward came into the church that I was taking in an angel."
The family had many trying experiences during the dark days of the Civil War, and was complelled to suffer all the hardships that were so prevalent in the midst of the border guerilla warfare. Shortly after the close of the war, Mrs. Ward moved with her husband to Johnson County where they resided in various vicinities until ten years ago when they moved to Olathe. She lived there happily until January 1917 when her husband and companion of nearly fifty-eight years passed away. Since then life was not the same to her, but she spent the time well contented under the circumstances, with her daughters.
Mrs. Ward died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Fannie Fay, December 13, 1917 of pneumonia, after a brief illness of five days. The funeral was held December 16 at the Methodist Church at Stanley, her body being placed by the side of her husband's in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery.
Mrs. Ward was a practical Christian and she lived her faith in her every day life. She alwayts had a kind and loving word for all and in every community in which she lived, she was always counted as a blessing. She was especially idolized by her grandchildren and they always counted the hours precious that they were privileged to spend in her presence.
The numerous and beautiful floral offerings given by her many friends were the mute and loving testimony of the esteem and devotion in which she was held.
She gave life of service to her Master, her family and her fellow creatures, and she passed on to her great reward with the consoling words, "I see the Light, I see the Light."
She leaves to mourn her loss five sons, five daughters, twenty-nine grandchildren, three great grandchildren and one sister, Mrs. Minnie Smith, of Wadsworth, Ohio. Her father and mother died when she was a child. Two of her brothers were killed in the Civil War, and her only remaining brother died from wounds shortly after its close.
The children are: Mrs. Fannie Fay, Stanley; Mrs. Emma Franklin, Burlingame; Mrs Ella Luce, Olathe; C.W. Ward, Kansas City, Kans.; Mrs. Minnie Scott, Ponca City, Okla.; Harry S. Ward, Midsfield, Texas; Mrs Pearle Sharpe, Morse; Earl Ward, Kansas City, Kans.; Russell Ward, Olson, Colo.; Ed Ward, Fay, Okla.----Olathe Register.