Free Trial - Ancestry.com US Deluxe Membership

Welcome To Pages From The Past

[ Home ] [ Up ]

Clark L. Nash was born in Canada on September 9, 1851.  He was the seventh child and sixth son born to John and Polly Emerson Nash.  Just where in Canada Clark was born is unknown.  The family lived in the vicinity of Kalamazoo, Michigan when Clark was two.  Clark grew up there enjoying ice skating on Lake Michigan.  He finished school and taught school there for a few years before deciding to "go West" and ending up in Labette County Kansas.  Here he was to meet his future wife, a young widow with a small son, Mary Elizabeth Hildinger Bechtelheimer.

Clark and Lib (as Mary Elizabeth was more familiarly known) married in Labette County on March 14, 1881.  Here Eunice and Nell were born. Around 1885, the family moved to Reno County near Nickerson, Kansas where they engaged in farming.

For the next few years Clark raised watermelons for a seed company.  While living here Clark developed arthritis.  This malady began to force limitations on Clark's activities, especially his farming.  He was forced to hire help.  Clark and Lib lost two sons, aged five and three, in a diphtheria epidemic, then a pair of four month old twin boys to the same disease, destined to be the last males to bear the Nash name.

The Nash family, disheartened by their losses and the disability of their father, saw the scheduled opening of the Cherokee Strip as a golden opportunity  for a brand new life.  Clark was not able to make the race, so he hired a man by the name of Jones to make the "run" on Nash's horse, Maude, and forfeiting his right to make a claim.  He filed the quarter-section where the town of Nash was first located and Clark's brother ,Burr, also claimed a quarter next to Clark.

Clark and Jones spent the rest of the summer and winter preparing the homestead for the family to follow.  They prepared a dugout near the center of the claim for the family to occupy. 

Clark and his family were joined in a covered wagon caravan by Lib's mother, Caroline Hildinger Freudiger, and two of her sons, George and John Hildinger, who were also successful in claiming quarter sections near Clark.  The caravan came down from Kansas in the spring of 1894.  Clark was 43 years old and Lib was 36.  George was not married but John, married to Sarah, had five children.

The family soon built a sod house on the corner of the farm.  With his step son Alonzo's help they were able to launch the home and farm.  Soon after, Clark was named Postmaster of Nashville, Oklahoma, and soon after he added a stock of groceries at this home and Nashville began to grow.  Here, Beulah, their last child was born in October, 1897.  Clark and his wife, Lib, prepared a campground where settlers from further west could spend a night enroot to the railhead at Pond Creek for supplies.  lib always invited the campers to use her kitchen and, very often, cared for sick babies.

Others began to move to Nashville.  J. J. Brown the village blacksmith, Henry Green but in a general store, and J. D. Love moved out from Pond Creek to establish his medical practice.  He built his home just beyond the Nash peach orchard.  A town hall was built and dances were held in it.  Literary programs and spelling bees were conducted regularly.  When the railroad came through town (about 1905),   the town moved one mile west to be at trackside.  Some of the buildings, including Dr. Love's, were moved to the new site.  Because of the confusion of names with Nashville, Kansas (on the same line), the town's name was shortened to Nash.

Clark started selling insurance in 1902 as a sub-agent under Tom Boyd of Enid for the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company.  he soon became a full agent with Grant County as his territory.  Later, he also sold hail insurance in Alfalfa County.  Beulah, his daughter, recalls:  "During the hail season everyone was pressed into service.  I was barely in my teens when he taught me how to take applications and I would stay in the office while he was in the field.  In the evenings he and I would complete the applications and get them off on the night train so that the farmers would be covered in the event of hail."

Clark's arthritis remained a constant burden and he hired young men to drive the buggy, care for the horses and learn the insurance business.  One of these young men was a cousin from Missouri named Arthur.  This was in the days before ready-made cigarettes and Arthur was a smoker.  Clark would say:  "Lets go." and Arthur would have to take time to roll a cigarette before the rig could move.  Consequently, Arthur was with them for less than a month.  Clark was not noted for his patience.

During all of his life Clark continued to promote his family, community and state.  He loved all forms of entertainment.  In addition to his drill team for Modern Woodmen, he managed a town baseball team in the summer and directed home talent plays and shows in the winter months.  One of his most ambitious productions was the heave drama, Scott's "Lady Of The Lake".  Clark was a talented, hard working, loving family man beloved by many.  He died too early at sixty one of prostate cancer.

Written By:  Roy Roger's