Jesse R. & Clara E. Starbuck

For over seventy years, Jesse and Clara Starbuck worked faithfully on many committees of Ohio Yearly Meeting. They served as Superintendent and Matron of Olney. Jesse became Clerk of the Representative Meeting and later of Ohio Yearly Meeting. A soft-spoken, humble man, Jesse presided with deep spiritual perception during a time of transition for Ohio Friends. Clara was also active on several committees on all levels in the Yearly Meeting but mostly preferred to work behind the scenes. As their family was growing up, they held daily family worship and scripture reading and hymns. Their favorite hymns were How Great Thou Art and Amazing Grace.

Jesse and Clara Starbuck had sweet dispositions that carried over into their family lives and inspired others around them. Jesse, who was known for his understatements and quiet humor, was known for his love of pies (especially cherry). Clara made herself available to each of their four daughters to help them as they left for Olney and their started their own families.

Early Years of Jesse R. Starbuck

Jesse Raymond Starbuck was born in Colerain, Ohio, on Second Month 4th, 1902. His parents were Benjamin Franklin and Anna (Llewellyn) Starbuck. B.F. Starbuck, usually called Frank, was a truck farmer whose first wife Sarah (Millhouse) was the daughter of Robert Millhouse of Pennsville. They had two sons and a daughter. Sarah died in 1885, and in 1893 Frank married Anna Llewellyn, also from Pennsville. They had three daughters and a son, Jesse. The family attended the Concord Meeting near Colerain.

Frank and Anna Starbuck moved to Harrisville in late 1902. Jesse attended the Lone Oak Friends School in Harrisville, helping with the family’s truck farm. He later said that his two earliest memories were going with his father to sell produce in Cadiz and going with him to buy a pair of long pants.

In 1917, when Jesse was 15, the Starbuck family moved to Salem, Ohio, where two of Frank’s older brothers had moved. Jesse attended Salem High School one year before finishing his secondary education at Friends Boarding School (later Olney), where he graduated in 1920. While he was a student at Olney, he met Clara Esther Bedell, a student from Iowa.

Early Years of Clara E. Bedell

Clara Esther Bedell was born on Eighth Month 22d, 1900 in Whittier, Iowa. She was the daughter of Albert J. and Anna (Fisher) Bedell. The family had five children. Clara joined the Whittier Meeting while she was a teenager, saying that she had her first religious experience in the Whittier Meeting House. Clara attended the local Friends school and then Scattergood. When Scattergood closed, Clara transferred to Olney.

It is possible that Jesse Starbuck and Clara Bedell met on the tennis court at Olney. They were both talented tennis players and were in the same class of 1920.

After graduating from Olney, Clara lived in California near her grandfather and several Iowa Friends. Clara worked as a cook and maid. While there, she deepened her lifelong friendship with Helen Coppock, who had grown up in Whittier but had also moved to California.

Setting up Housekeeping in Salem

Jesse Starbuck married Clara Bedell at Whittier, Iowa, on Sixth Month 5th, 1924. They built a house on Fourteenth Street in Salem, Ohio, where they lived for 60 years. Jesse and Clara had four daughters: Anna Mae, Ruth Emily, Dorothy Jean, and Elizabeth Joyce (“Betty”). Jesse became a partner with his brother Albert in the Starbuck Brothers business (their sister Mary also worked there). They specialized in heating, roofing, and tinsmithing.

Clara was a busy mother. She made clothes for her four daughters, sometimes from feed sacks. During the Depression, she carefully managed the family’s money by seeking sales. She tended to many houseplants and flowers and made rugs and afghans. Clara was a firm believer in prayer. After her daughters graduated from Olney, she maintained a consistent correspondence with them until her latter years. On occasion, she would find chairs at sales and would re-cane them. She also worked for a while at Cooper’s Greenhouse, which was located near the Starbuck home.

The family had a piano in their house, and they occasionally sang hymns on First Day evenings. Robert Starbuck, a cousin who lived in Salem, would often join them for hymns.

Jesse was a careful driver and taught each daughter how to drive. The family made many trips to visit relatives in Iowa and visiting Olney Friends School. All four daughters attended and graduated from Olney.

In the late 1930s, daughter Dorothy had a serious case of asthma. Jesse tried several different things to try to help her. The family spent the winter of 1941-1942 in California to see if a change in climate would help her condition. Two daughters did not accompany them. Anna Mae was a student at Olney, and Ruthie chose to stay with Jesse’s parents in Salem. Jesse worked in a tinshop and Clara kept house for a cousin that winter in California.

All four daughters were happily married. Anna Mae married William Moffitt of Ackworth, Iowa. Ruth married Roy Joe Stuckey of Wilmington, Ohio. Dorothy married Carl Smith of Harrisville, and Betty married Lawrence Osborn of Monteverde.

In 1951, Clara and Jesse, showing tremendous fortitude and understanding, travelled with Betty to the Monteverde community, high in the mountains of Costa Rica. A pioneering community was being formed there by Ohio Friends. When Betty married Lawrence (an Olney classmate) that year, theirs was the first marriage to took place at Monteverde.

In her latter years, Clara’s sister Edith Bedell made her home with Clara and Jesse. Together Edith and Clara made numerous quilts for Jesse and Clara’s grandchildren.

Work in the Meeting

Jesse and Clara were very active in the Salem Meeting, serving on many monthly and quarterly meeting committees. When Quarterly Meeting arrived, Clara was on the committee that prepared ham sandwiches and applesauce for the meals. Jesse spoke on rare occasions or read scripture during the worship.

In 1928, Ohio Yearly Meeting created a Peace Committee. “Being deeply concerned in regard to the alarming increase in the military training of young men of the nation, it is our desire that we may do our part toward helping to create the proper public sentiment against the military spirit,” the minute stated when the committee was authorized. Jesse Starbuck was appointed one of the original members of the committee and served on it until 1936. In its early years, the Peace Committee distributed peace literature, made a presentation to the Board of Trustees of Ohio State University, and distributed posters in local schools. In 1931, Ohio Yearly Meeting approved a remonstrance the committee drafted against compulsary military training at OSU.

Jesse also served on the Committee on Education as Connected with Primary Schools. In 1931, Ohio Friends sponsored six such schools with 60 students. Jesse served on the committee from 1930-1933. Clara was added to the committee for one term beginning in 1939.

In 1940, when Ohio Yearly Meeting created the Temperance and Public Morals Committee, Jesse Starbuck was another of the initial members. In its early years, the committee distributed a leaflet entitled “Thoughts for Anyone Interested in Smoking,” posters against alcohol and tobacco, and anti-alcohol blotters. Jesse went off the committee in 1943. He was also an initial member of the Nominating Committee when it was appointed as a standing body in 1949.

In the 1940s, Clara served as assistant clerk of Salem Monthly Meeting. Jesse served as clerk 1947-1953.

Jesse served on the Boarding School Committee from 1937 to 1955, and from 1952-1955 he was the convenor of the Repair & Improvement subcommittee. In 1949, the subcommittee harvested trees from the Plummer Place and used the lumber to re-floor all the classrooms at Olney. The following year, the committee inspected all the school buildings in the spring and repainted them in the summer.

Superintendent and Matron at Olney 1953-1956

In 1953, Jesse and Clara were called to Olney for three years. Jesse served as Superintendent, and Clara was the Matron. With their daughters married and away from home, they rented out the house and moved to Barnesville. Jesse and Clara would often visit Carl and Dorothy Smith, who were living on a farm near Harrisville.

Jesse and Clara worked at Olney when it was in a period of transition. The same year they moved there, the school had decided to begin accepting non-Quaker students. At the time, tuition was $450 a year.

Living on site made it possible for Jesse to oversee some changes the Repair & Improvement Committee was undertaking. The committee reported in 1953 that it “made major repairs at the Plummer House and the cottage” and raised $10,850 for a new faculty house.

The school year of 1954-1955 was a barometer of the changes taking place at Olney. With the restrictions on students lifted, enrollment increased from 69 to 83. Benjamin F. Whitson donated 1,408 books to the library, which led to a discussion of an enlarged library space with a wider range of books. For the first time, students were allowed to perform “selected plays,” and a ceramics class was permitted. Morris Kirk was serving as Principal at the time; he and his wife Marie lived in the “new house.”

The year 1955 was Jesse’s last year as convenor of the Repair & Improvement subcommittee. It installed a new heating plant in each dorm and a warm air furnace in the cottage. New asphalt tile was laid in the main hall also. The big committee decided this year to build the addition with a collection room over a science room to allow for an expansion of the library.

In 1956, Jesse and Clara felt it was time to return to Salem. The big committee decided to discontinue the post of Superintendent, replacing it with the position of Supervisor. Jesse was thus the last Superintendent of the school, a post that had existed since the school was constructed. Elmer Hartley became the first Supervisor with his wife Anna as Hostess.

Yearly Meeting Appointments

The Meeting for Sufferings appointed Jesse as Clerk in 1956, and he served until 1961. He had been appointed to that body in 1949. While serving as Clerk, he and Clara were appointed as two of Ohio Yearly Meeting’s delegates to the All Friends Conference in Wilmington, Ohio, in 1957. This conference brought Friends of the various traditions together for a wide-ranging discussion on the future of Quakerism. In their report to Ohio Yearly Meeting in 1957, Jesse and Clara reported

We returned home with a feeling that we should be more alert, individually and in our meetings, to the needs of a suffering world and try to do something about it in a constructive way; then our meetings should grow, and Christ will become a vital part of our lives.

The late 1950s was a time of transition for Ohio Friends as well. In 1958, Jesse wrote the minute asking OYM to change the name of the Meeting for Sufferings to the Representative Meeting. The Representative Meeting appointed a committee to examine the 1922 Discipline and recommend changes. Ironically, the Representatives had complained in 1957 about spending so much time “on routine details of business,” because the new discipline (approved in 1963) re-wrote the Queries to require much more time in business sessions.

In 1960, Jesse was asked as Clerk of the Representative Meeting to draft a note to the Lake Erie Association, which was holding its sessions at Worthington, Ohio, the same week that Ohio Yearly Meeting was being held. In this letter, he wrote “May we all keep ever before us that basic principle of Quakerism, the revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart of every individual who is willing to open the door and allow Him to enter.”

In the meantime, Clara had been serving on the Household subcommittee of the big school committee. They purchased new stainless steel tableware in 1959. She served on the Household subcommittee until 1961, then on the Faculty subcommittee 1961-1967. Jesse served intermittently on the school committee until 1965.

From 1961 to 1965, Jesse and Clara served on the Indian Affairs Committee. They were the bearers of the sad news in 1962 that the Tunesassa Indian complex in New York State was soon to be taken. The state had constructed an interstate through a portion of the property, and much of what was left was scheduled to become the location of a large lake.

Jesse served as Treasurer of Ohio Yearly Meeting from 1961 to 1964. During this time, the YM budget increased from $7,650 to $9,680. In 1964, he was replaced as Treasurer because the YM Representatives appointed him Clerk of Ohio Yearly Meeting. He thus went off the Representative Meeting, on which he had served continuously since 1949, because in 1962 the Yearly Meeting had agreed that the yearly meeting clerk was an ex-officio member of the Representative Meeting. Salem Monthly Meeting appointed him an Elder, an office he held from 1965-1971.

Ohio Yearly Meeting Clerk

Jesse Starbuck served as yearly meeting clerk for four years (1965-1968). Ohio Yearly Meeting at the time was well along the path towards working with Friends of other traditions, though concern was being expressed about that direction. During his service, his daughter Dorothy typed his minutes in an office at the Boarding School.

Yearly Meeting had a much different schedule when Jesse first served as Clerk. It opened on Seventh Day morning at 10:00 a.m. with organization, followed by committee meetings in the afternoon. First Day was a time for visiting, with an evening presentation. The Second Day morning session heard three reports, then answered all the Queries. The afternoon was set aside for additional committee work. Third day had morning and afternoon sessions, and the last session was held on Fourth Day afternoon.

The 1965 Yearly Meeting had a number of interesting discussions. Bill Taber was a released Friend in the Yearly Meeting at the time, visiting each meeting and working with the students at Olney. Some Friends proposed to create a position of YM Secretary; while the idea that Bill Taber would fill the position was implied (and the two were often intermingled), it was a separate issue from his service as a released Friend. A committee reported on the first gathering of Conservative Friends, held at Stillwater a month prior to Yearly Meeting in response to a concern by Edmund Goerke. In the last session of the Yearly Meeting, the Historical Committee was created.

The yearly meetings of 1966 to 1968 were a little less eventful. Cleveland and Uniontown became Monthly Meetings, but Fairhope became independent. Morning worship was added to the schedule in 1966. In 1967, the time of yearly meeting was shifted to run from Fourth Day to Seventh Day. Jesse represented Ohio Yearly Meeting at the Friends World Conference at Guilford College earlier that year.

During the late 1960s, Jesse and Clara began to spend much of their summer time in Arizona. They purchased a house at 4032 East Flower Street in Phoenix, two miles northeast of the state capitol building. They attended the local meeting on East Glendale, which was part of the “new meeting movement.” Because they spent so much of their time in Arizona, Jesse asked not to be re-appointed Clerk in 1968.

Salem and Phoenix

In the 1970s, Jesse and Clara divided their time between their house on East Flower Street in Phoenix and their house on Depot Road in Salem.

Jesse held a few yearly meeting appointments, mostly temporary in nature. He served on the Audit and Budget Committee for several years and also served on the Document or Epistle Committees. He was frequently called to time the yearly meeting sessions. Jesse went back on the Representative Meeting in 1973 and served until 1988. He was an overseer at Salem from 1977 to 1986. From 1977 to 1983, he served on the North Carolina Concerns Committee (renamed the Wider Fellowship Committee in 1981) and helped plan the gathering at Middleton in 1978 and the gathering at Stillwater in 1983.

Clara also continued her service. She served as an overseer at Salem from 1974-1977 and 1984-1986. She also served briefly on the Historical Committee and the Nominating Committee. In 1973, she was appointed to the Temperance and Health Committee, but later in Yearly Meeting week that committee was dissolved.

When the Peace and Human Relations Committee were producing the pamphlet Continuing in Marriage, they asked Jesse and Clara to write a piece. Here is what they submitted:

The key to a happy marriage is to really mean and practice what you said in your marriage vows “I take thee to be my wife (or husband), promising with Divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband (or wife) until death shall separate us.” What a beautiful commitment this is, not just for a few years, but for our whole lives.

Such a commitment means working together for a common goal through sickness and hard times as well as good times. There will always be times of rough sailing, but with much prayer, lots of faith, and with His divine help, these times of depression and discouragement can be times of spiritual growth and of growing closer together. Love and support from parents and friends are important in maintaining a good marriage, and as a family comes along, couples need to make time in busy lives for special family times together, keeping communication open. Support of firends in similar situations, with similar goals, and mutual faith in a Heavenly Father who watches over all of us in every way are important in any marriage.

As we approach our golden years, which can be some of the best times of our lives, the love we have for each other and for our families grows deeper, even though we may have health problems. We can be very thankful for a loving and caring family as well as for a loving Heavenly Father who has helped us all the way, and who will continue to help us as we call upon Him in prayer.

The Walton Home

Ray Stanley, a cousin of Clara’s, encouraged Jesse and Clara to move to the Walton Home. In 1986, they took the plunge and moved to Barnesville (though they maintained their memberships at Salem). While living there, they attended meeting at Stillwater. Clara died on the morning of Twelfth Month 28, 1995. Jesse died almost exactly one year later on First Month 4th, 1997.