Carlson, Clara May Speck (1908-1996)

CARLSON, SPECK, HURLOCK, ARKLIE, JOHNSTON, ARENDS, ERICKSON, FORD, WESTRUM

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 12/12/2020 at 10:51:58

Daily Freeman Journal
September 30, 1996

Clara Carlson, 87, Stratford

Clara Carlson, 87, Stratford, died Sept. 26, 1996, at the Stratford Care Center. Funeral services were held at 10 a.m. today at the Christian Church in Stanhope, with Rev. Henry Grant officiating. Burial was at the South Marion Cemetery. Foster Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.

Clara May Speck, daughter of Ed and Maude Hurlock Speck, was born Oct. 13, 1908, in Iola, Kan. In 1911, she moved with her parents to the Ames area. She graduated from Ames High School in 1926. She then graduated from Iowa State with a degree in home economics in 1930. On Aug. 10, 1931, she married Chester Gilmore Carlson in Ames. The couple operated a livestock and grain farm southwest of Stanhope for 62 years. She had resided at the Stratford Care Center since January of 1994.

She is survived by her husband, Chester; sons and daughters-in-law, Varlen and Fern Carlson, Stanhope, Richard and Sonya Carlson, Webster City, Chris Carlson and Anne Arklie, Stratford; daughters and sons-in-law, Joann and James Johnston, Boone, Jane and Larry Arends, Albert Lea, Minn.; 18 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; sisters, Betty Erickson, Stanhope, Mary Ford, Stratford; brother, James Speck, Ames; and several nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by daughter, Karen Sue Carlson; her parents; a granddaughter; brothers, Gordon, Walter and John Speck; sisters, Jerry Westrum and Roberta Speck.

Mrs. Carlson was a member of the Christian Church of Stanhope, former 4-H leader, former Hamilton County Mental Health Board member, member of the Hamilton County Historical Society, Federated Women's Club, Farm Bureau, Hamilton County Home Economics Council, and she was a Sunday School teacher and deaconess at her church.