When the Ross and Laura Clark family reunion meets this weekend at Palisades-Ke- pler State Park, they’ll be sharing a lot of stories of their family that family historians want to make sure get collected. As far as Josh Clark has determined, the Clark family now has more than 330 descendants.

When Oliver Clark and his family came to Iowa, that date is still hard to nail down firmly. They know Oliver Sr. first arrived here in 1837. Oliver Sr. then went back to collect his family to move to this area he discovered, which took roughly two years to happen. It’s hard to deter- mine if that move of the entire family back to Iowa happened in 1839 or 1840. Even though the Oliver Clark family was here in the 1840s, deeds only show the purchase of the property beginning in 1844. While Oliver Clark Jr. was not old enough to stake a claim for land in 1837, he was old enough to purchase property in 1844, which they show.

Myrt Bowers is a fifth-generation member of the Oliver Clark family. Myrt discovered looking at an abstract of the land of the Bowers farm that one of the original owners of that property was the Oliver Clark family that she’s descended from. The Clarks farmed land around Lisbon and Mount Vernon and as far north as Marion over the years.

Josh said the Clark family farmed more than 300 acres of farmland in the late 1800s before tractors and plows were available.

“Those were very large farms for that time,” Josh said.

There is some family history that indicates one of the blacksmiths in the family may have produced a plow that was used in some farms, but no patent was ever made for the tool.

This is the third time the Ross and Laura Clark family is hosting an all-family reunion, and the hope is to inform younger relatives so they can understand their family’s history and the place in the community. Josh said the Clark family has held a diversity of occupations over the years, including politicians, blacksmiths, school teachers, engineers, health care (nurses and doctors), business owners and farmers.

The Clark family had several members attend Cornell College in Mount Vernon over the years.

“And we still have some Clark family members attending Cornell today,” Josh said.

It has become increasingly difficult for the family to keep the lineage straight as the family has begun to use the same first names in recent years.

“You have to check the dates when you see names like Oliver and David to make sure which of the Clarks are being discussed,” Josh said.

Josh has to thank the work of Tim Reilly, one of the grandsons of Ross and Laura, who has done a lot of the legwork on the genealogy and research for his branch of the family in the past.

“He and I have different stories we’re more focused on in our genealogy research,” Josh said. “Without his work that I’m now digitizing, however, I’d have a lot more work I’m doing in getting our history down.”

Josh has been working on the genealogy for the past year and a half.

“I knew our family was big,” Josh said. “I just didn’t realize it was this big.”

Josh said the Linn County Genealogical Society has also been a godsend as he’s been digging into the family’s history and how much information they have on the residents of Linn County. That’s why the Ross and Laura Clark reunion this weekend is also important.

Josh and Myrt noted they’ve lost some of the oral history of the family due to members passing before that could have been put down on audio recordings or paper. They both want younger generations to know more about the family history in the future.

With many of the Clark descendants together reminiscing, it will give chances for many to share their memories of the family and reflect together and get some of those memories and stories preserved.

One of the things that Josh was astounded by was that Ross and Laura Clark family had resided in a stone house without water or electricity in the 1900s, and many of the descendants still remember that home in the 1940s.

Myrt and Bonnie note that’s just how they lived at the time.

“Electricity didn’t come about in the United States as widespread in rural areas until after President Franklin Roosevelt made that effort,”

Myrt said. Myrt was also one of the last students who graduated from middle school at a one-room schoolhouse before the consolidation of schools happened in the county.

Jody Clark, Josh’s mother, came from a smaller family and has said marrying into the Clark family has been something she has enjoyed.

“It was something that we would always come out for a weekly dinner and play cards and you’d get to know the family that way,” Jody said.

Myrt said that was a carryover from the Clarks’ upbringing as well, as the family would travel to the grandparent’s home after church every Sunday for a large meal.