Finding aid for the Clifford B. Pease Family Photographs

Biography of the Clifford B. Pease Family

Clifford B. Pease (1879-1944) was the son of James Augustus Pease (1840-1922) of Rockport Township, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and Asenith Abell (1845-1914), also of Rockport Township. Clifford was born in Dover Township, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on September 17, 1879. He was one of six children. His siblings were Herbert E. (1866-1927, married to Lydia Stoll), Marcia (1867-1878), Chester C. (1868-1964, married to Ruby Hall, a descendent of the Hale family of Ohio), Clarence J. (1873-1879), and Clinton T. (1882-1940, married to Hattie Bates). Pease family members were direct descendants of Major Lorenzo Carter, Cleveland's first permanent settler.

As a child, Clifford B. Pease attended the public grammar school in Dover Township that, in 1929, would become the new site for the funeral home business started by his father, James Augustus Pease, in the early 1870s. He attended and graduated from the Champion College of Embalming in 1899, the Massachusetts College of Embalming in 1902, the Esco School of Applied Science of Embalming in 1919, and the Cincinnati College of Embalming in 1920.

Prominent in the business and civic affairs of his community, Clifford B. Pease was the first Town Clerk of Dover Village when it was incorporated in 1911. He was a member of the Dover Masonic Lodge, Dover Odd Fellows, the North Olmsted Kiwanis, and numerous state and national funeral director organizations. He was an avid outdoorsman and was a member of the Dover Bay Gun Club. His love of hunting took him to Ontario, Canada, and to Wardsboro, Vermont, where he owned a small hunting lodge.

He married Alice Minerva Osborn (1888-1959) of Dover Township on September 29, 1909. She was born in Dover Township on July 8, 1888. She was the daughter of Samuel Osborn (1842-1897) and Mary Crocker (b. 1851), both of Dover Township. Alice Minerva Osborn was a granddaughter of Reuben Osborn and of Jedediah Crocker (1761-1841) of Lee, Massachusetts, early settlers of the Western Reserve. Reuben Osborn accompanied Joseph Cahoon, an original founder of Dover Township, Ohio, from New England to the Western Reserve. Jedediah Crocker was at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with General George Washington during the American Revolution, and was one of eight founders of Dover Congregational Church in Dover Village, Ohio. The charter for the church was brought to Ohio by covered wagon and oxcart from Lee, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, about 1815.

Alice Minerva Osborn was one of several children, including Leverrett Osborn (d. ca. 1948, married to Emily Newsham McLain of Portland, Oregon, and California). She graduated from Dover Village public schools and was an active member of Dover Congregational Church. Along with her husband, Clifford B. Pease, she was a member of the Cora Griswold Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. She was a licensed funeral director and assisted her husband for thirty-five years until his death in Westlake, Ohio, on October 3, 1944. She continued to operate the Pease Funeral Home with her daughter, Marion Elizabeth, until it was sold to Glen A. Jenkins of Westlake, Ohio, in 1955. She then traveled extensively until her death in the Pease home in March 1959.

Clifford B. Pease and Alice Minerva Osborn Pease had two children, Marion Elizabeth (1910-1991) and Kenneth Osborn (1913-1916). Marion Elizabeth Pease was born in Dover Village, Ohio, on August 1, 1910. Kenneth Osborn Pease was baptized in Dover Congregational Church on April 6, 1913. The Pease family was involved in a serious auto accident in Dover Township in 1916. It is unclear if this was a contributing factor in the death of Kenneth Osborn Pease later that same year.

Marion Elizabeth Pease began her studies as a primary school teacher at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, in 1928. She received a teaching certificate, but transferred to Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and graduated in 1931. She attended and graduated from the Cleveland College of Embalming and became a licensed funeral director in 1933. She was member of numerous state and national funeral director associations. She was briefly married for five months from June 1940 to November 1940 to Rudolph Sobel of Cleveland. She filed for divorce in November 1940 and never remarried. She was a lifelong advocate for animal rights in her community. She owned many purebred terriers during the course of her life and was a member of the Cleveland Animal Protection League. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and belonged to the same chapter as her parents. She was the first vice-regent of the Nathan Perry Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Lorain, Ohio.

She continued to operate the Pease-Jenkins Funeral Home after the death of her mother in 1959 under the new ownership of the Jenkins family. She was a licensed funeral director well into the 1980s. She died in Cleveland on November 28, 1991.

Scope and Content

The Clifford B. Pease Family Photographs, ca. 1880s-ca. 1980s and undated, consist of 275 images. There are 207 black and white and twelve color photographs, thirty-seven color slides, and nineteen negatives.

The collection is of value to researchers seeking illustrative materials on the Pease family, the Osborn family, the Schlembach family, and the Sobel family. The collection is also of value to researchers seeking illustrative materials showing views of 1910s-1920s Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Sacramento, California; Lake Tahoe, Nevada; and New Orleans, Louisiana; as well as 1940s Wardsboro, Vermont, and Ontario, Canada. Black and white photographs of Pease Funeral Home and funeral directors of Ohio will be of interest to researchers seeking illustrative materials about the funeral business in the mid twentieth century.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult MS 4809 Pease Funeral Home Records and MS 4810 Clifford B. Pease Family Papers.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] PG 505 Clifford B. Pease Family Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gift of Christine Kitchens in 1993.

Processing Information

Processed by Richard B. Robertson in 1999.

Detailed Description of The Collection