General Notes

Clara Teresa Bertel was born August 10, 1891 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She was the second daughter and second oldest child of John T. Bertel and
Maria Angrick. Clara married Roy Chadwell. She died September 20, 1960 in
San Antonio, Texas.
Clara was the daughter of immigrant parents from Germany. She was of
German and Swedish descent.
Clara had an older sister named Rose and a younger brother named John A.
Bertel. Their young mother died November 18, 1894 when Clara was but two
years old. Maria Bertel died of typho-malarial fever. At the time of her
death the family lived at 230 West McCarty St.
John T. Bertel remarried August 5, 1896. His new wife, Catherine Lena
Petroff, was to be the mother of at least two children, Mata Julia Bertel
and Ollie Francis Bertel. Lena also was an immigrant from Germany. When
the children were young, they attended a Catholic school during what
little classroom education they received. Both at school and at home the
German language was spoken. Life was very regimented. After the death of
John Bertel in 1903, Lena married Henry Hoeltkemeyer on August 11, 1913.
Evidently the stepmother of Rose, Clara and John A. was not very fond of
them, so the three led unhappy lives at home. But all three children
loved and respected their father. John T. Bertel died October 19, 1903
when Clara was eleven years old. He was buried in an unmarked grave at
the Crown Hill Cemetery (Section 43, Grave #4786). In 1989 arrangements
for the installation of a permanent headstone were made. Unfortunately,
John was not buried alongside his wife, Maria.
Catherine Lena Bertel was a very strict and demanding stepmother. Clara
did not attend school very long so she, like her sister Rose, went to
work at a very young age. In those days many children were in the
workplace. Clara and Rose's working likely was at the suggestion of the
stepmother. But after the death of their father there may not have been
much money, so everyone may have needed to work to survive.
When Clara was ninteen she and her sister Rose were working at the Van
Camp Canning Company in Indianapolis. During that period she met her
husband-to-be, Roy Chadwell, who also was employed by that company, After
their courtship they were married on November 8, 1911 at the Pastor
Assumption Church in Indianapolis. (Clara's white wedding dress is
safeguarded today by Peggy M. (Chadwell) Rohan. At her wedding Clara was
5 ft. 4 in. tall and weighed less than 100 pounds; her waist was eighteen
inches.) Their marriage certificate is a beautiful work of art and is
still in the family.
The couple left Indianapolis on Christmas Eve in 1911 and likely went to
live on the farm of Roy's father, Turner, at Bryantsburg, near Madison,
Indiana. There, the first four children were born. Later, around 1918,
they moved to a farm in Rush Co., Indiana, where four more children were
born.
While the couple lived in Indiana, Clara became the mother of eight
children. They were Herman Turner, Thelma Gertrude, William Nelson,
Helena Teresa Rose, Alberta Margaret, Kathleen Nellie, Robert Richard and
Earl Leonard, the latter four being born in Rush Co. Later, the family
moved to San Antonio, Texas, where she became the mother of two more
children, Thomas Edward and Peggy Marie. (Another child, a baby girl, was
stillborn on the afternoon of March 7, 1937. The family then lived at 223
Grove Avenue. The child was buried at San Jose Burial Park, Blk. 7,
Section 1, Lot 45, Grave 5.)
Life on the farms in Indiana was hard, and the winters were cold. In May
1927 Helena ("Tootie") developed mastoiditis. On June 18 she died at the
J.W. Riley Hospital in Indianapolis. Clara and Roy were devastated by the
loss of their daughter who only lived to be nine years of age. They had
Helena buried in the East Hill Cemetery outside the town of Rushville,
but at the time did not have money for a permanent grave