Clarence and Irene Powers
	Irene Studer (left) Clarence Walter Powers Clarence Powers Clarence was the 4th child of Richard and Millicent Powers, and was born in 1897. I don't know much about his early life, except that he began seeing Aunt Irene in 1916 when he would have been 19 and she 17. They saw each other nearly every day for the entire year. The next year, 1917, America joined the war in Europe and Uncle Clarence joined xxxxxxxxxxxxxx made up entirely of men from Huron County. His unit mustered in on xxxx the xxxx, 1917. They were sent to Montgomery, Alabama to Camp Sheridan for one full year of training. I have an entire album of pictures that Uncle Clarence took while in camp. Uncle Clarence must have already planned on running a Woolworth store by this time. In a letter to Aunt Irene as he was on his way to New York City, to embark to France, he mentioned that he hoped he would get to see the Woolworth Building while he was there. The ship that his unit and others took to France was the famous Leviathan. This had been a German luxury liner that happened to be in New York when war was declared. The U.S. government siezed the ship and began using it as a troop transport. The German's learned of the ships' departure and sent two submarines to sink it. Providence allowed the ship to leave two days ahead of schedule and the subs never found it. Uncle Clarence arrived in France on xxx, xxxx 1918. Company G would first see action on xxx,xxxx at xxxxx. During this battle Uncle Clarence's trench was overrun by some advancing Germans; apparently he lost his gun in the struggle and ended up killing a German with his trench knife. In so doing he became the first man in company G to kill one of the enemy. He wrote home to Aunt Irene that many men who came home from this war would be very different than when they left. Once, early on in the war, they came under a mustard gas attack. Some of the men including Uncle Clarence jumped into the trenches, not knowing that the gas settled in the lowest places. His throat was burned by the gas and for the rest of his life he suffered periodically from throat ailments attributed to the injury. Company G fought in almost every major battle in France in World War I, including the Argonne, xxx,xxx,xxx and xxx. The finally ended up in Belgium after the armistace was signed in xxxxxx, 1918. They would not be return home until xxxx, 1919. After the war ended he began his career with Woolworths, probably with some type of apprenticeship. He obviously wanted to have an established business before he and Aunt Irene could marry. In 1922 he was given his own store, a new Woolworths, in Medina, New York. Several months later he was transferred to Findlay, Ohio only 55 miles from Norwalk. He and Aunt Irene were married in early 1923. They would run Woolworth stores in Findlay, Fostoria, Mansfield and Dayton over the next 20 years. During this time he and Aunt Irene wanted children badly but for some reason were never able to have any. Like Grandpa and Grandma Powers they got involved in numerous civic organizations and Uncle Clarence became an avid bowler. He switched to the bakery business during World War II and worked for a Ray's Bakery in Findlay. After the war he returned to the 5 and 10 cent store and took a job as manager of Lendzon's 5 and 10 store in Hamtramck, Michigan, an area of Detroit. The two of them would run numerous Lendzon's around the Detroit area for another 20 years. In 1965 a shopping mall opened near their store. Aunt Irene said that the first day that it was open their store was nearly empty the entire day. Uncle Clarence kept telling her that their customers would come back; the new-ness of the mall would wear off and they would come back. But they didn't; within a month they were out of business. The idea of what a `store' was had changed. Uncle Clarence was 68 and Aunt Irene was 66. They didn't have the means or the energy to start over somewhere else, so they decided to retire to Norwalk and 30 Harris Avenue. Great Grandpa Studer had died in 1959 and Great Grandma Studer in 1961. She had left the house to Aunt Irene since Esther was in Coshocton and Marie in Texas. Uncle Clarence had been renting the house out, but now they ended the lease and moved back in. They were somewhat defeated in spirit and finances, so Grandpa Powers furnished them with new items to spruce up the house. They lived for the next 15 years together in the house that they had come to know each other in over 48 years before. Uncle Clarence died in 1980 from throat cancer, he was 83. Although he was a heavy cigar and pipe smoker, Aunt Irene attributed the cancer to his exposure to mustard gas during the war. After his death the life seemed to go out of her for a long time. She gained even more weight than she already carried and then became bed ridden. She stayed in bed, seemingly near death, for a few years; she had to hire a neighbor to come in and assist her day to day. Finally one day around 1983 she decided to snap out of it and got up and moved around. By this time she was 84. She still needed a walker, but she became mobile again. Later she switched to a wheel chair, but she regained her sense of dignity and always came out of her room in the morning dressed in a bright colored dress, make-up and a string of pearls around her neck.