Vancleave - Susan Bowers
From:Michael Saunders
The following is a remembrance of Joseph VanCleave's wife by one of her granddaughters: SUSAN CATHERINE BOWERS VAN CLEAVE by L. June Van Cleave Saunders I never new either of my grandfathers (Alfred Boyle or Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave) but my Grandmother Susan Catherine Van Cleave lived close to us until May of 1924 when she died, so I have a few memories of her for I was nearly five when she died.
I remember sitting with her in Church. Mama was apt to let us leave the services and go play on the front Church steps sliding down the banister when we grew restless, but not Grandmother. She expected me to be very quiet and sit still. However Grandmother spent a lot of time with her eyes closed. One could wiggle carefully then. I am sure she prayed a lot and especially during the Communion Service. I have always tried to emulate her. Mostly I remember Christmas with Grandma. It seems she every year gave me a new doll. And one year Miss Hilliard or another of her good neighbor friends gave me one, too. I hardly knew what to do with two "babies", so I sat on the floor with all the adults watching and promptly undressed both dolls, to much adult disapproval.
I remember, too, when Grandma VC had her final illness. I went with Mama to her house and we found her in bed. She made a big bulge in the bed for, although she was only 5' 4", she weighed over 200 lb. Once before when she was sick she lost some of this weight, but she didn't feel right and was eager to regain her weight. But this day Grandma was ill with a stroke. She had had others and a saying of that time was: three strokes and you're dead. This was her third one. I remember worrying about her and feeling that not enough attention was shown her when she was so ill.
In my mind she lay in her bed in the little brick house at 200 N. Walter St. unattended for a long time maybe days, but I am probably mistaken. She died at the Presbyterian Hosp. after that stroke. I also remember that Copper Ave. did not run past her house; instead there was a deep ravine with wooden bridges across it to accomodate the residents to the north bridges at Edith St. and Walter. Chester and I found that ravine intriguing and I thought it scary because so much trash gathered there and once I saw bloody rags under the bridge. Grandma said sometimes purse snatchers hid in the ravine. Maybe murderers, too, I added.
Besides being portly, Granmother also did not have very much hair. It was thin and gray. She usually grew it long and made it into a skimpy bun atop her head. Years later when I met her half sisters, Emma Wilkerson and Carrie Wray, I was startled to find Aunt Emma resembled my grandmother except she was proportionally a larger woman. She was 5' 8" or 5" 10".