Clara Bird Jaggers was the second child born to Boaz (Boze) Jaggers and Lydia McNair Jones Jaggers in the tight-knit community around Munfordville, Kentucky, which is in the Mammoth Cave area of the Green Valley. The Jaggers were farmers, and well-known basket weavers.

When Clara was born, folks came around to see the pretty newborn; her distant cousin Willis Butler was one of the first visitors. The three-year-old boy looked at her and said, "I'm gonna marry that girl." It was only about 18-years later when he did marry that girl.

Clara was born with a Polyroid Lipoma of the tongue. Essentially, it was a benign tumor that was attached to her tongue, which was not brought to the attention of specialist until she was 14-years old.

A report was written for a 1906 Medical Journal pointing out the peculiar shape of the tumor, of the oddity of the tumor; it looked like and was the size of a fetal duck or chicken. We have a picture from the report that does indeed look like a fetal chicken. Wondering, did they give Clara the middle name 'Bird' before, or after they noticed the tumor's shape?

In 1906, the doctor wrote in part: "...was considerably larger than any single tumor of the kind on record. In addition to its size, the other features of interest in the case were its peculiar shape, the age at which it was first seen (three weeks), the apparent slowness of its development (14 years) and the absence of medical clinical symptoms. It is also interesting to note that a girl of considerable intelligence with an intelligent mother of good habits and living in the city would allow a growth of this size to remain for almost 15 years without seeking medical advice."

After the tumor was removed Clara slept for three days.

Clara had a wonderful life with her family, we have over 80 letters, spanning 80 years that are full of humor, and drama. Their father was a farmer, but in the winter they would join in the area's cottage industry of weaving baskets. On the sidebar, I've included a picture of Clara holding one of the baskets that her family made.

Clara had seven sisters - Amy, Delilah, Gracie, Ethel, Pearl, Maymie and Lydia Mac, and two brothers - Jones (aka Brother) and Boze Jaggers.

In 1909, her future husband Willis wrote a love letter to her, which declared his love and that same year they were married. Their first child, Gladys Hartswell was born in 1910 and their son, Herbert Elijah was born in 1917.

The family moved back and forth from Kentucky to Ohio while Willis worked as an insurance man and Jewel-T salesman. In 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression, the family had been in Canton, Ohio for several years; in order to supplement the family income, Clara worked as a salad chef in the restaurant of an exclusive hotel in downtown, Canton. Her daughter Hartswell had just graduated from McKinley High School, and Willis was discovering that insurance sales were not going to be growing.

Willis, Hartswell and Herb went over to Warren, Ohio to try to drum up insurance sales. The family wrote letters telling of the hardship of being separated; but soon, they were all together again in, Canton.

After her son Herbert Butler graduated from McKinley High School he went off to college, Hartswell had married Ed Fashbaugh, and Clara and Willis moved to Cleveland for awhile then they went back to, Kentucky.

They would spend the rest of their lives driving back and forth from Louisville to Canton to visit their daughter and grandchildren. Clara was loved by her grandchildren, she was an excellent grandmother to them.

When her husband Willis passed away in Louisville, her daughter Hartswell made an executive decision that Clara would move to Canton and live with her. Hartswell told her son Bill, "Go to Kentucky and get your grandmother."

The next day, Bill left for Kentucky in a moving van and two days later returned with Clara, and all of her belongings.

Years later, Clara told me that she didn't really want to come to Canton - but Bill showed up with a moving van, and said his mother sent him to get her, then said he wasn't leaving without her. So, Clara went along with the plan.

She spent the rest of her life living her daughter and being part of the lives of her ten great-grandchildren. She even knew three of her 2x great grandchildren. She had stories of past generations that she would share and she would tell us the names of ancestors. Sadly, we did not take notes of the stories - but we remembered the names because in her stories she repeated the names over, and over...Clopton; Kessinger; Logsdon; Jones; Reynolds; Jaggers, and Butler.

Years later, I discovered that for generations, these families married into each others' families. All of my great-grandparents were 4th-6th cousins; I believe I am my own cousin! HA

Great Grandma Butler had wonderful stories, a sarcastic bent to her delivery that was spiced with humor. I will remember her as the "teller" of family as she embraced the responsibility, and the tradition of telling the next generations about their ancestors.