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�ACTION FOR OLDER PERSONS
BROOME COUNTY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
ABSTRACT
Mrs Clara Bell was born in Hawleyton, N. Y. near the Pennsylvania
line on a farm in 1888.
She was raised in a poor but kind home
and mentions the hardships of having parents with failing health.
She accepted the Lord at an early age and the church played an
important role in her life.
Mrs. Bell went through the 10th grade
and later attended a business college.
pastor of a church.
She has a son who is a
She had a great desire to become a writer
and has and still writes poetry.
Mrs. Bell is a resident of the
Good Shepphard - Fairview Home where she is happy and secure.
�ACTION for Older Persons, Inc.
Independent, Membership-based, Non-profit
Broome County Court House, Room 307
Court House Square, Binghamton, New York 13901
Telephone (607) 722-1251
BROO:ME COUNTY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview Transcription
Interviewer:
Susan Dobandi
Address:
Date:
5/178
Tape No: 1
295 Front St.
Binghamton, N. Y.
Person Interviewed: Mrs. Clara Bell
Address:
Good Sheppard Fairview Home
80 Fairview Ave, Binghamton, N. Y.
Date of Birth or approximate age:
90
Mrs. Bell: Could you tell us a where you were born, something about your
parents and any work experiences that you've had in the community and any
of your recollections of your Childhood?
I was born in Hawleyton just this side of the Pennsylvania line the
seventh child in the family born to a mother that was really an invalid
that shouldn't have born a child at that time and we lived on a farm.
I was born in 88 - 1888 and a we were what would be considered poor -
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�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page
2
people we really did have hand-me-downs that would help us.
One year
I had to be kept from school because there wasn't a proper coat - warm
coat for me to wear, and but it was a kind home but a very poor home
and I think my father and mother tried always to cover up the poorness
of it and dwell on the richness of it and there was a heap of richness
there when you look over other homes today - and I was a unwanted child
and a homely little runt of a child and born to people that had some
nice looking children but very early in life I began to feel the conscious����
of God and I hope nobody misunderstands that it's nothing freakish at
all but it was the sense of God and the dependence upon him and there
was really nothing in the home life that would have made me that way
but I was very conscious of it.
I still remember the lay of the land
and the spring in the pasture lot and to put things every contour of that
place.
It seemed as though God was in it with me and I think that �e
must have known that I needed him so much because I was naturally a
sour disposition child and my mother just could not - she could not
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feel towards me and that's w
"
·ve and so - love and so that
has made me think that perhaps that had something to do with the queer
child that I was and a when I - I went to Sunday school with neighbors
and wanted to join the church and I told my parents that I - that I
wanted to join the church well they told me that there would be a time
when I was old enough but the time wasn't yet for me to join so that
was alright with me - and I can remember reading the Bib le and the scorn
of my eighteen year old brother because I was reading a Bible because of
course he had no use for such a thing by the way I did have five sisters
\Jr\
L)�
and-a one very dear to me like a mother and -a-it was so beautiful that
1
at the time that I joined the church which doesn't mean becoming a
�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page
3
a Christian at all but it does to many peoples mind but not to mine.
My
mother had the feeling well if one of her children joined the church
and I will say if one of my children accepted the Lord - mother felt
that she should and I as a child was so ashamed that I didn't love her
and I didn't love her and I had no reason to feel that she loved me
but my mother joined the church but my mother became a Christian and if
nobody else believes in Christianity I would have to for the change that
was in my mother and she and I over and over again have thanked the
Lord together that he spared her that time and we had that mother
daughter experience.
It was beautiful for quite a few years and she
mean't so much to me.
My people because of father's failing health and mother's of course
u�
had been we moved to Binghamton when I was sixteen years old and a my
a father was a janitor in the school here not able to do that work at
all and I fought desperately to get work of some kind.
I may have had
a foolish pride to be ashamed of but I - I still know the roots of it.
I couldn't bring myself to go into one of the shops.
It didn't seem
as though it belonged some way to me and so there was a twitter twitter
well my sister told me that her husband would lend me the money if I
wanted it to go through business college so I did and very foolishly
which is up to my way of thinking.
When the time was up there was no
offer made to me to get a job so I just simply left without interviewing
the man who was head of the thing at all.
Well I - one of the women who had gone through girls with the school
�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page 4
with me she said if I find a job at all that you can do why she said I
will let you know - she did - she found a job in the a - a bookkeeping
branch of the shoe factory here and she let me know and at the same time she
did my mother said found out that my sister in Deposit her husband was
bookkeeper at the Outing Publishing Co. she was ill and my mother said
that was my duty to go there and so I went and a then three months
Outing moved to New York and a many people went with it but I - I came home
vY\
then and a-was engaged to be married at that time and so by - I took in
washings to earn the money for I couldn't get a job and my mother was
too ill to leave and I was married in April and a in three years and
about a half the Lord blessed our home with a little girl who was so
very dear and precious to us and we had her for forty-two years but the
'r
Lord has taken her home and� she was the wife of a pastor who established a camp in Michigan and then a 10 years afterwards I always said that
I'd like to have six little girls but I wouldn't want any boys at all
but the Lord sent me a little boy and oh I never knew the treasure that
had been witheld from me and I can say it today he will be 58 tomorrow.
He has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.
He is pastor
of a church in Cincinnatus and he has I think that we are compatable let
me say.
Life looks funny to us at times riduculously so and yet we
love the Lord so dearly.
;q
Well in my life after my husband died and -a 12 years ago I had - we had
a home in Port Dickinson and oh we had a lovely, lovely lot - extra lot
and lovely flowers and shrubs I had and I worked until I was too weary to
enjoy it and I so I decided to come here to the Fairview Home and one of
the greatest blessings that I have found since being here and I have
�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page 5
found a heap of them is - I am not afraid anymore.
there ever was one.
I was born a coward if
There were breakings in all around me when I was
home and there was nothing that gave me that sense of security even though
we put on these aluminum screens I thought nobody could get in - well
people did get in so I came to Fairview.
There is some people that
would say they were false in Fairview and a I don't have to acknowledge
it so I'm not going too.
have found kindness.
I have found grea.t-.blessing in this home.
I
I have broken my hip, fractured my hip and I have
broken my wrist and the joint in it and I had to be in the infirmary
here which many people say they would rather die than go into the infirmary to the - in the infirmary I found more grand-daughters and they were
just so good to me and yet today when I see them there is just that
warm�th feeling about it and while I can say that I can see improvements
I couldn't be critical because I have been treated so kindly and the Lord
is with me and I feel that I am one of the most fortunate people in the
world and I praise the Lord for it because he has gone with me through
some pretty deep troubled waters but he has always been there and led me
out and on and it's good - it's good.
the Lord leaving me here.
I can't see the advisability of
I thought when I came here I would be able to
go to the infirmary and help and bless some lives there maybe and I now
I don't do any of those things I go with a walker oh once in a while I
get down there I love the folks there but I don't see where there is one
particle of use of me taking up the place on the earth that I do.
I
have thought now it's so near the time I would like to wait till I was
ninety but after that I don't dare to tell the Lord that I think so I
think it's the time for me to be taken because I am a useless person
really as far as being a blessing to anybody else oh I wanted to do such
things.
I wanted to go through college.
�1
Mrs. Clara Bell
Page
6
I wanted to write and I wanted you see the Lord couldn't trust me with
that I'd probably would have gotten very cockey and puffed up and all of
that - he had to keep me down - but oh he has been down with me and he
has been up with me.
The Lord is to be praised.
( Tell us about the poetry that you write. )
About - beg you pardon.
( The poetry) Oh - well that was a was a happy outlet even in my
childhood and a - of writing poetry and then in Binghamton I was - oh I
had a poem published by Lucia Trent and in her western anthology.
dont't know how I ever got the idea of sending there.
I
There must have
been something in my head or something that made me send it and that was
accepted which was a real puff to my vanity and there was a write-up in our
paper and a picture of me and another woman who had two anthology poems
well that had brought me to the notice of our local poetry class that
Miss Herrick a retired English teacher at high school was established
that and so I went to that and of course I learned a great deal and
awaited to write more properly perhaps but it was - it was a great
"' 11\ 1i cU
pleasure as long as it I think it just disbanded if I rcember or for
some reason I had to give it up but it has been a pleasure and a few
well the course and the class she sent out our work good deal to
colleges in their books or whatever they call them and we had quite a
few published in them and then I had I was very fond of Woody Magazine
because both of my children went through school and I had two poems
there and - and some other places some other mostly Christian magazines
they had been but I think that my writing has tended to be along the
line of nature very much - very much and it hasn't been anything sumptuous but I shall always feel that if it had been the Lord's will for me
�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page 7
to have had an education that I could have written for I had the feeling
,n
I have the en� and he's blessed me perhaps with an appreciation that they
don't all people feel.
That's just - just splend�d to see who has - has
a written and who has arrived and can do it and so I have been wonderfully
blessed by them.
( Could we go back to when you were a 1.itt 1e gir
� and see the ch anges in
. 1 J"\
. \
the community a as far as transportation the way you were brought up?)
We lived 2 miles from the school and we lived up a dirt road and a that
was real steep over half of the way there and so that we - when wintertime
often times it would be with great difficulty that we would get to school
and once in a while we would have a hired man that would come for us
�h
when it was impossible to get home and -a we - we learned the reading,
writing and arithrnatic and I had dear teachers that helped me a in my
desire for more.
(It was probably a one room schoolhouse wasn't it?)
Yes, uh hu and a
so that one teacher very kindly offered to stay on in the school and
teach 10th grade which she didn't have to do and she did and I was I had
my certificate for having passed that and then that is the formal educat
ion that this poor soul has had but in heaven I'm going to be one of the
smartest women there and we did have a - a yoke of oxen in my childhood
and a they were larger than any of the others that I saw at the time -
�
��
very large red steers I called them red and a but they my a they seemed
to adore my father and I think he did them and they'd be so obedient to
him but he would leave me to - to ride them - to sit by them while he
went for an errand or to get a drink and I would be so frightened I can
�Mrs. Clara Bell
Page
8
fee1 it yet those great oxen would no more of paid attention to that
peeping weening voice and anything under the sun and most of our neighbors
1L
I think had more of the worlds goods than we did but I do think much of
our I can't say poverty because we were not poverty people at all because there was too much within and people coming and living in our home
and coming - coming to us so much but - - - - - there was peace and
goodness and joy in our home and I lost my train of thought that I was
on and that's what 90 years old does to you.
( Well, you're doing very well. )
vh
,J
And� so that a we had - we had such a desire for a what they call a
II\
platform wagon that was a good size larger than a carriage and-a but we
never had the money to get it so if we had to be a need for something
like that we had to use a lumber wagon and a I tnow that a ride in that
lumber wagon and look down on those horses scar�ed the liver right out
of me as a kid.
It seemed as thdgh I was up as high as heaven and they
were elephants or something and a that was the way we were then and
finally my people were able to get a horse one horse and in time my
brother came back home and they got two more horses, and things moved
more swiftly but not better - not better at all I think it was a leadCJ
re of r
1
.,, '
1 -1
.
''
ing of what was coming to town and my brother-inlaws got a gramaphone /\
gramaphone I think it was called.
Oh we just swarmed that 11ouse every
night we'd go and we were so thrilled with that it was so wonderful and
then another brother became affluent enough to a buy a Ford car and
that was just - just immense to us.
In - I was - I had been a member
of Calvary Church for nearly 60 years and through those years from the
�o
time I was 16 until oh maybe - maybe I better say 10 years or-m0-Fe I
�Mrs Clara Bell
Page
9
don't think it was that long I taught Sunday school and from every grade
I even caught - taught a college choir - class ignorant as I
onward.
am and enjoyed them and a there was so many things in the church you
can do and love to do and people to love and I - that was a dear church
and is a dear church but there in difference in the church I was in
things progress.
I learn everything progresses but old women 90 years
old they don't progress but it's good - it's good.
regret.
I have no feeling of
I had such a desire to be good looking and I was such a homely
child and always had been and I had some beautiful sisters b�t it just
didn't happen to mother the seventh child they tell about as favorite
but this one wasn't much in health and to think - to think I had so
much to thwart my growing up and my strength and I'm the only one of
those other children who are living and the husbands and wives are
gone too.
Even now the nieces and nephews are going some an still the
Lord is having me stay on here.
must be.
I would never quite dare to ask him Lord please take me out
of my body and take me home.
to do.
It's his will and his will is good
I just don't quite think it's the thing
He has got the program he knows and it's very wise that he
doesn't let us know.
( No, it would be very difficult to get through from one day to the
next if we knew what was ahead of us. )
It surely would - it surely
would I do pray the Lord if it's his will that I shall never have
any more broken bones.
They are difficult in a way but you know the
way the Lord went with me through those hard yeilds is just unbelieve
able and even now this sounds boastful too dear but this is the Lord
iht,
I'm boasting in the when I was in this insumary- infirmary the - the
nurses did praise the progress that I made they thought it was
�l. ..
Mrs. Clara Bell
Page
10
remarkable and a once in a while a dear one just doesn't try and that
is too bad. - - - - ( Well thank you very much Mrs. Bell for taking the time to talk with
us is there anything more that you would like to add to this interview? )
No, I don't think so only if I may add this I wish that everyone who
might ever hear this would love the lord and depend on him as much as
he's caused me to depend on him.
( Thank you. )
�
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/50a3a941c5076b4b54f360d0cd5e4de4.mp3
89d809b026880d5cddb53ce3ae68a231
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89d809b026880d5cddb53ce3ae68a231
Dublin Core
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Title
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Broome County Oral History Project
Subject
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Broome County -- History
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Description
An account of the resource
The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. <br /><br />In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed.<br /><br />See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information.<br /><br /><strong>Acknowledgment of sensitive content</strong><br />Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. <span>Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community.</span> However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared.
Identifier
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2
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In copyright
Contributor
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Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer
Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist
Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee
Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian
Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant
Jamey McDermott, Student Employee
Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives
David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies
Coverage
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1977-1978
Relation
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<a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</a>
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Bell, Clara
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Dobandi, Susan
Date of Interview
1978-05-01
Collection
Broome County Oral History Project
Duration
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32:32 minutes
Date of Digitization
2016-03-27
Subject LCSH
Bell, Clara -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Authors -- Interviews; Hawleyton (N.Y.); Cavalry Church; Poetry
Streaming Audio
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<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE55362">Interview with Mrs. Clara Bell</a>
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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<p><b>Broome County Oral History Project</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Mrs. Clara Bell</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Susan Dobandi</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 1 May 1978</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Mrs. Bell, could you tell us, ah, where you were born, something about your parents, and any work experiences that you've had in the community, and any of your recollections of your childhood?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: I was born in Hawleyton, just this side of the Pennsylvania line, the seventh child in the family, born to a mother that was really an invalid that shouldn't have borne a child at that time, and we lived on a farm. I was born in ’88—1888, and ah, we were what would be considered poor—people, we really did have hand-me-downs that would help us. One year I had to be kept from school because there wasn't a proper coat, warm coat, for me to wear, and but, it was a kind home but a very poor home, and I think my father and mother tried always to cover up the poorness of it and dwell on the richness of it, and there was a heap of richness there, when you look over other homes today. And I was a unwanted child and a homely little runt of a child and born to people that had some nice-looking children, but very early in life I began to feel the consciousness of God, and I hope nobody misunderstands that, it's nothing freakish at all, but it was the sense of God and the dependence upon Him, and there was really nothing in the home life that would have made me that way, but I was very conscious of it. I still remember the lay of the land and the spring in the pasture lot and to put things, every contour of that place. It seemed as though God was in it with me, and I think that He must have known that I needed Him so much, because I was naturally a sour disposition child and my mother just could not—she could not feel towards me, and that's a mother’s life, and so—love, and so that has made me think that perhaps that had something to do with the queer child that I was, and ah, when I—I went to Sunday school with neighbors and wanted to join the church, and I told my parents that I—that I wanted to join the church, well, they told me that there would be a time when I was old enough but the time wasn't yet for me to join, so that was all right with me—and I can remember reading the Bible and the scorn of my eighteen-year-old brother because I was reading a Bible, because of course he had no use for such a thing. By the way, I did have five sisters and, uh, one very dear to me like a mother and, uh, it was so beautiful that at the time that I joined the church, which doesn't mean becoming a, a Christian at all, but it does to many people’s mind, but not to mine. My mother had the feeling, well, if one of her children joined the church, and I will say if one of my children accepted the Lord—Mother felt that she should, and I as a child was so ashamed that I didn't love her, and I didn't love her and I had no reason to feel that she loved me, but my mother joined the church, but my mother became a Christian, and if nobody else believes in Christianity I would have to for the change that was in my mother, and she and I, over and over again, have thanked the Lord together that he spared her that time and we had that mother-daughter experience. It was beautiful for quite a few years and she meant so much to me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">My people—because of father's failing health, and mother's, of course—had been, we moved to Binghamton when I was sixteen years old and, ah, my, ah, father was a janitor in the school here, not able to do that work at all, and I fought desperately to get work of some kind. I may have had a foolish pride to be ashamed of, but I—I still know the roots of it. I couldn't bring myself to go into one of the shops. It didn't seem as though it belonged some way to me, and so there was a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">twitter-twitter</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—well, my sister told me that her husband would lend me the money, if I wanted it, to go through business college, so I did, and very foolishly, which is up to my way of thinking. When the time was up there was no offer made to me to get a job, so I just simply left without interviewing the man who was head of the thing at all.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well I—one of the women who had gone through girls with the school with me, she said, “If I find a job at all that you can do,” why, she said, “I will let you know.” She did—she found a job in the, ah—ah, bookkeeping branch of the shoe factory here and she let me know, and at the same time she did, my mother said, found out that my sister in Deposit—her husband was bookkeeper at the Outing Publishing Company—she was ill, and my mother said that was my duty to go there and so I went and, ah, then in three months Outing moved to New York and, ah, many people went with it, but I—I came home then and, ah—was engaged to be married at that time, and so by—I took in washings to earn the money for I couldn't get a job and my mother was too ill to leave, and I was married in April and, ah, in three years and about a half, the Lord blessed our home with a little girl who was so very dear and precious to us, and we had her for forty-two years but the Lord has taken her home, and she was the wife of a pastor who established a camp in Michigan, and then, ah, ten years afterwards, I always said that I'd like to have six little girls but I wouldn't want any boys at all, but the Lord sent me a little boy, and oh, I never knew the treasure that had been withheld from me, and I can say it today, he will be fifty-eight tomorrow. He has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. He is pastor of a church in Cincinnatus and he has—I think that we are compatible, let me say. Life looks funny to us, at times ridiculously so, and yet we love the Lord so dearly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well in my life, after my husband died and, ah, twelve years ago I had—we had a home in Port Dickinson, and oh, we had a lovely, lovely lot—extra lot, and lovely flowers and shrubs, I had, and I worked until I was too weary to enjoy it and I so I decided to come here to the Fairview Home, and one of the greatest blessings that I have found since being here, and I have found a heap of them, is: I am not afraid anymore. I was born a coward if there ever was one. There were breakings-in all around me when I was home and there was nothing that gave me that sense of security, even though we put on these aluminum screens, I thought nobody could get in—well, people did get in, so I came to Fairview. There is some people that would say they were false in Fairview and, ah, I don't have to acknowledge it so I'm not going too. I have found great blessing in this home. I have found kindness. I have broken my hip, fractured my hip, and I have broken my wrist and the joint in it and I had to be in the infirmary here, which, many people say they would rather die than go into the infirmary, into the—in the infirmary I found more granddaughters and they were just so good to me, and yet today when I see them, there is just that warmth feeling about it, and while I can say that I can see improvements, I couldn't be critical because I have been treated so kindly and the Lord is with me, and I feel that I am one of the most fortunate people in the world and I praise the Lord for it, because he has gone with me through some pretty deep troubled waters, but He has always been there and led me out and on and it's good—it's good.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I can't see the advisability of the Lord leaving me here. I thought when I came here I would be able to go to the infirmary and help and bless some lives there, maybe, and I, now I don't do any of those things, I go with a walker, oh, once in a while I get down there, I love the folks there, but I don't see where there is one particle of use of me taking up the place on the earth that I do. I have thought, now it's so near the time, I would like to wait ’til I was ninety, but after that I don't dare to tell the Lord that I think so, I think it's the time for me to be taken, because I am a useless person, really, as far as being a blessing to anybody else—oh, I wanted to do such things. I wanted to go through college. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">I wanted to write and I wanted—you see, the Lord couldn't trust me with that—I probably would have gotten very cocky and puffed up and all of that—he had to keep me down—but oh, He has been down with me and He has been up with me. The Lord is to be praised.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Tell us about the poetry that you write.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: About—beg your pardon?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: The poetry.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: Oh—well, that was a was a happy outlet even in my childhood, and ah—of writing poetry—and then in Binghamton I was—oh, I had a poem published by Lucia Trent and in her western anthology. I don't know how I ever got the idea of sending there. There must have been something in my head or something that made me send it, and that was accepted, which was a real puff to my vanity, and there was a write-up in our paper and a picture of me and another woman who had two anthology poems, well, that had brought me to the notice of our local poetry class that Miss Herrick, a retired English teacher at high school, was established </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">that, and so I went to that and of course I learned a great deal and awaited to write more properly, perhaps, but it was—it was a great pleasure as long as it—I think it just disbanded if I remember, or for some reason I had to give it up, but it has been a pleasure and a few, well, the course and the class, she sent out our work a good deal to colleges, in their books or whatever they call them, and we had quite a few published in them and then I had, I was very fond of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Woody</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Magazine because both of my children went through school, and I had two poems there and—and some other places, some other, mostly Christian magazines they had been, but I think that my writing has tended to be along the line of nature very much—very much and it hasn't been anything sumptuous, but I shall always feel that if it had been the Lord's will for me to have had an education that I could have written for, I had the feeling I have the in and He's blessed me, perhaps, with an appreciation that they don't all people feel. That's just—just splendid to see who has—has, ah, written and who has arrived and can do it, and so I have been wonderfully blessed by them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Could we go back to when you were a little girl, uh, and see the changes in the community, uh, as far as transportation, the way you were brought up?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: We lived two miles from the school and we lived up a dirt road and, ah, that was real steep over half of the way there and, so that we—when wintertime, often times it would be with great difficulty that we would get to school, and once in a while we would have a hired man that would come for us when it was impossible to get home, and—ah, we—we learned the reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I had dear teachers that helped me, ah, in my desire for more.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: It was probably a one room schoolhouse, wasn't it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: Yes, uh huh, and, ah, so that one teacher very kindly offered to stay on in the school and teach tenth grade, which she didn't have to do, and she did and I was, I had my certificate for having passed that, and then that is the formal education that this poor soul has had, but in Heaven I'm going to be one of the smartest women there, and we did have a—a yoke of oxen in my childhood and, ah, they were larger than any of the others that I saw at the time—very large red steers, I called them red and, ah, but they, my, ah, they seemed to adore my father, and I think he did them, and they'd be so obedient to him, but he would leave me to—to ride them—to sit by them while he went for an errand or to get a drink, and I would be so frightened I can feel it yet, those great oxen would no more have paid attention to that peeping weaning voice than anything under the sun, and most of our neighbors, I think, had more of this world’s goods than we did, but I do think much of our—I can't say “poverty,” because we were not poverty people at all, because there was too much within and people coming and living in our home and coming—coming to us so much, but—there was peace and goodness and joy in our home, and I lost my train of thought that I was on, and that's what ninety years old does to you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Well, you're doing very well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: And, ah, so that, ah, we had—we had such a desire for a, what they call a platform wagon, that was a good size larger than a carriage and, ah, but we never had the money to get it, so if we had to be, a need for something like that, we had to use a lumber wagon and, ah, I know that a ride in that lumber wagon and look down on those horses scared the liver right out of me as a kid. It seemed as though I was up as high as Heaven and they were elephants or something, and ah, that was the way we were then, and finally my people were able to get a horse, one horse, and in time my brother came back home and they got two more horses, and things moved more swiftly, but not better—not better at all, I think it was a leading of what was coming to town, and my brother-in-laws got a gramophone—gramophone, I think it was called. Oh, we just swarmed that house, every night we'd go, and we were so thrilled with that, it was so wonderful, and then another brother became affluent enough to, ah, buy a Ford car and that was just—just immense to us. In—I was—I had been a member of Calvary Church for nearly sixty years and through those years from the time I was sixteen until, oh, maybe—maybe I better say ten years ago, don't think it was that long—I taught Sunday school and from every grade onward. I even caught—taught a college choir—class, ignorant as I am, and enjoyed them, and ah, there was so many things in the church you can do and love to do and people to love, and I—that was a dear church and is a dear church, but there is difference in the church I was in, things progress. I learn, everything progresses, but old women, ninety years old, they don't progress, but it's good—it's good. I have no feeling of regret. I had such a desire to be good looking, and I was such a homely child and always had been, and I had some beautiful sisters but it just didn't happen to Mother, the seventh child they tell about as favorite, but this one wasn't much in health, and to think—to think I had so much to thwart my growing up and my strength, and I'm the only one of those other children who are living, and the husbands and wives are gone too. Even now the nieces and nephews are going, some, and still the Lord is having me stay on here. It's His will and His will is good, must be. I would never quite dare to ask him, “Lord, please take me out of my body and take me home.” I just don't quite think it's the thing to do. He has got the program He knows and it's very wise that He doesn't let us know.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: No, it would be very difficult to get through from one day to the next if we knew what was ahead of us.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Bell: It surely would—it surely would. I do pray to the Lord, if it's His will, that I shall never have any more broken bones. They are difficult in a way, but you know, the way the Lord went with me through those hard yields is just unbelievable, and even now this sounds boastful, too, dear, but this is the Lord I'm boasting—in the, when I was in this insumary [</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">sic</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">]—infirmary, the—the nurses did praise the progress that I made, they thought it was remarkable and, ah, once in a while a dear one just doesn't try, and that is too bad.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Well thank you very much, Mrs. Bell, for taking the time to talk with us. Is there anything more that you would like to add to this interview?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs: Bell: No, I don't think so. Only if I may add this—I wish that everyone who might ever hear this would love the Lord and depend on Him as much as He's caused me to depend on Him.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Thank you.</span></p>
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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Title
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Interview with Mrs. Clara Bell
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Bell, Clara -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Authors -- Interviews; Hawleyton (N.Y.); Cavalry Church; Poetry
Description
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Clara Bell talks about her childhood growing up in Hawleyton, NY on a farm with her family. She discusses the hardship of her parents' declining health and the importance of the church in her life, as well as her experience in college and desire to become a writer and poet.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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audio/mp3
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English
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Recording 2
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Bell, Clara ; Dobandi, Susan
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1978-05-01
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2016-03-27
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Broome County Oral History Project
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32:32 minutes