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Clara Belle Williams Franklin 1856 - 1945 Clara
Belle Williams was born Thursday, July 31, 1856, in La Crosse,
Wisconsin, She was the third of eight children born to David W.
and Rebecca Chase Williams, an African-American couple that had come to
Wisconsin from Pennsylvania in the early 1850s. Around 1859, when
Clara was about three years old, the family moved to Rockford,
Illinois.  David Williams operated a barber shop there for the next decade.  1869 Rockford, Illinois City Directory  1870 Census 4th Ward Rockford, Winnebago County, Illinois June 8, 1870 The
Williams family was still in Rockford at the time of the 1870 census.
Not long afterward they moved to Maryville, Missouri. By
1872 they had moved again to Topeka, Kansas, where David opened a
barber stop at 163 Kansas Avenue. By early 1873, or possibly late
1872, the family had arrived in Denison, Texas. Two of Clara's
brothers worked in a barber shop alongside their father in the 200
block of W. Main Street. It opened the first week of July in 1873. "The colored school will open in Denison next Tuesday in the same building occupied by the school last spring. The daughter of Dave Williams, proprietor for the Denison Tonsorial Rooms, has been engaged as a teacher." (The Denison Daily News, August 26, 1874)  1876-1877 Sherman-Denison City Directory   Biography Index African-American Biography Index African-American Research Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |