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100 YEARS OLDAunty Clemens Will Soon be a Centenarian.RECORDS SAID TO GIVE HER AGE.Her Family Does Not Credit the Story that She is 107 Years Old—She Came Here in 1826 and Cooked in Many of the Famous Old Hotels.According to papers, which the family claims are authentic, “Old Aunty Clemens” will be 100 years old December 30. Members of the family say that there may be some miscalculation but they believe this is her correct age. In recent years, some people have tried to make out that she is 107 years old, but her children do not have much faith in this calculation.With her son, Joseph, and her daughter, Mrs. Caroline Robinson, taking care of her, Aunty Clemens is living for the present at the latter's home 34 North Mill street. Up until two weeks ago, when she contracted a severe cold, her health has been ex cellent. Since then, her mind and body have been enfeebled. Monday morning, she was much better and talked to a reporter for The Indepen dent who called at her daughter’s house.Aunty Clemens is said to be the oldest colored woman in Stark county and one of the oldest in the state. Age and hard work have bent her body and weakened her frame, but she is still active and can walk about unassisted. She cooked for years in some of Massillon’s oldest hotels and the memories of some of her ineals still cling in the minds of the older residents. During the time she work'd here she raised thirteen children, two of whom now survive.Anty Clements was born in Brooke county, W. Va. Her mother was a ree woman, but her father a slave. Her mother died when she was a little girl and she went to work for a family by the name of Chambers. There she remained until eighteen years old. When she was 19 years of age, she crwne to Massillon. The present city scarcely existed then. The canal was the artery of commerce that kept the little village alive. Stage coaches ran through to he canal from Canton. It was very natural then that when Aunty Clem-ns got out of the coach upon that spring morning in 1826, she should look for employment in the old Folger tavern, the stage coach station, which stood ui)on the corner now occupied by the First National bank. From that time Aunty Clemons was a resident of Massillon and with the excej-tion of short visits, she has never left It.The renown of the cooking at the Folger tavern grew as time passed. Farmers stopped at the hotel after driving to Massillon with a load of wheat from a distance of sixty miles to taste Aunty Clemens' pies. ’ The meals she used to prepare are said by older residents to have been be-ond compare and the hotel prosper-d. When it finally went out of business, Aunty Clemens went to the Madison and the Bayliss hotels and that conducted by the late George Zellley. In the meantime she had married Jerry Clemens and was raising a family.In the early days of the history of the canal, the boats shipped passengers as well as large cargoes of grain. The craft were handsomer than they are at present. White paint always adorned the sides, while the cabins 1 comfortably furnished for the lassengers. Aunty Clemens tells ofjw the boatmen blew horns when nearing town. Then followed a gen-ral scramble for the dock. Prospective passengers with carpet bags, would rush our of the tavern and lown to the canal side ready to go on board as soon as the boat touched. After the craft swung out into thestream again and was moving slowly /, the loiterers would return tothe tavern office to smoke and talk until the next, boat arrived.iningstosioirig!1atecrybeftweyonandVof idonthiistoires I S moi for It Dys strc hea ar’s feet sail thyandstoineeAikgoocunstoiJiTablittlcan8saleS'daymaiStcMInsidesithetak.the!grei
Newspaper Details
Massillon Evening Independent
Massillon, Ohio, US
Mon, Nov 18, 1907
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Massillon P.
OH, USA 31 Jan 2024
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