Clara Kyle Foree LaFon

Clara Kyle was born to an Irish father and a Scottish mother "near the banks of the St. Lawrence River" in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, later moving with her parents & family to a farm near Norfolk, St. Lawrence County, New York. She was one of 11 children (4 sons, 7 daughters). She attended Hinesburg Academy in Vermont. Her college work was done at New Hampton Institute at New Hampton, New Hampshire, and Fairfax, Vermont where she graduated in 1853 as salutatorian. She was raised in a Scotch Presbyterian home, but became a member of the Osnabrook, Canada Baptist church, perhaps as a result of boarding in the home of A.J. Gordon, pastor of the Clarendon St. Baptist church in Boston. In 1854 she went to Palmyra, MO to teach English at Bethel College for one year, then reached only by boat service on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Thereafter, she opened her own select school in LaGrange, MO, affiliated with the LaGrange Baptist Church, which within a few years became the LaGrange Baptist College. Following her marriage to Hezekiah Foree in 1859 she continued to teach school until the Civil War interrupted. Following his death in 1867 she taught in MO schools for 13 yrs, until she married Lycurgus (also called Lucus) LaFon in 1881 (when son J.R. Foree would have been 17 yrs old) and went to live on his farm and at his home at Palmyra, MO. Lycurgus was a widower with ten children. She was active in church, temperance, mission and Chautauqua work. Within a year after the death of Lycurgus in 1900, she went to Tekamah, NE to live with her son, J.R. Foree. Except for 7 yrs in which she cared for her sister Miss Mary Kyle at Riverside, CA, she lived in Tekamah until her death at age 87 yrs, 2 mos and 7 days. Although her obits list her birth year as 1828, the 1900 Census lists her birth yr as 1829. The 1900 Census lists her as living in Fabius Township (North Half), Marion, MO.