MRS. SYLVIA CLARK.
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: SMITH, WOODBURY, FOSTER
Horticulture seems to be a pursuit that is eminently fitting for women. This has been exemplified to a degree by the subject of this sketch, who owns ten acres in the Willows, San Jose, on Hicks Avenue, at the head of Pine Avenue, which is partly planted in peaches, black Tartarian cherries, and apricots. She bought the place, a grain-field at the time, about twelve years ago. For some years she has had it worked on the shares, she being in Los Angeles County for a while, but now she very sensibly proposes to manage it herself.
Mrs. Clark is a native of Perry, Wyoming County, New York, where she was educated, and married to Solomon Clark, a native of the same county. Her parents, Septimus and Clarissa Smith, were natives of Rutland, Vermont, moving to New York at an early date. The parents of Mr. Clark were natives of Massachusetts, who moved to Penn Yan, New York, also at an early date. Mr. Clark learned the hardware business with his brother, Alvah Clark, at Penn Yan. After his marriage he went to Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, and engaged in the hardware business, but finally returned to Penn Yan and opened a similar establishment, in which he remained three years. He then sold out to his brother and moved to Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he remained in the hardware business for twenty-three years. Mr. Clark largely helped to build up this town, having given liberally to every church, the Normal School, and every public enterprise requiring his support. His failing health deciding them to come to California, he sold his Whitewater business in 1875. Mr. and Mrs. Clark traveled over much of Northern and Central California before locating, and finally selected San Jose as their home, buying twenty acres on the Coyote Creek. After two years they sold this place, and bought for a permanent home, the ten acres in the Willows. Mr. Clark died in 1880. During his brief residence at the Willows he devoted himself to developing and cultivating the home and orchard.
Mr. and Mrs.
Clark have had four children: Emma, who married J. P. Woodbury, of Marshalltown,
Iowa, and by whom she has five children living. Mrs. Woodbury died in Los
Angeles, in September, 1885; Carrie, now deceased, the wife of William Foster,
of New York city; Lilah, who died at the age of nine years; and Eva, who died at
the age of fifteen months —all born in Whitewater, and all buried there
excepting Mrs. Woodbury. Mr. Clark had four brothers and two sisters, all of
whom are deceased. Mrs. Clark had five brothers and three sisters, of whom only
one sister and a brother are living.
Pen Pictures From The
Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated.
- Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 656-657