Clara Ethel Getman, 100, Rehoboth, Delaware, died peacefully Jan. 22, 2019, at the Brandywine Senior Center in Rehoboth.
Clara Ethel Mains was born on Jan. 2, 1919, to Albert and Clara Mains in Seymour, Indiana. She moved with her parents as an infant to Phoenix, Arizona, population 12,000. She was a 1936 honors graduate of Phoenix Union High School and a 1940 graduate of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, with a major in history, anticipating a teaching career.
She met her future husband, Minnesota optometrist Dr. Gerald Getman, a child developmentalist who was attending a 1939 professional conference in California. The officers of his professional fraternity were assigned blind dates with the officers of Ms. Mains’ sorority. After a cross-country courtship they married a year later on April 4, 1940, in the pastor’s parlor of the Disciples of Christ Church in Phoenix, Arizona, while she was on senior year Easter break. This precipitous romance was much to the chagrin of her mother who had foresworn the North for a healthier climate. She warned her climate-challenged only daughter, “Do not come running back to me if the arctic weather becomes too difficult!”
Clara was welcomed to the North Country in a new “sorority” by a number of spouses of absent World War II soldiers who subsequently become famous in Ken Burns’ World War II TV special, “The War.” The impact on families brought the young bride a new career to supplant her teaching plans. In addition, Clara was soon nurturing their own five children born in Luverne and became a critical part of the research team for Dr. Getman’s study of early childhood special needs youngsters.
Professionals from around the world came for weeklong seminars in developmental optometry. Dr. Getman’s staff led by Clara became the hosts, tour guides and healing presences for the families who were subjects of research still used widely for developmental education in professional schools and health and education practices.
Among her many activities as a young wife in the Midwest were a Masonic membership where eventually she became the Eastern Star Worthy Matron. She was an active Presbyterian laywoman who modeled living faith with extraordinary grace and patience. Her kitchen was one of the first stops for not only many relatives but for meals and clothing in the Post Depression and post World War II era for those who then were called “hobos” who “rode the rails.” Dr. and Mrs. Getman stewarded the not substantial Salvation Army funds for the county’s needy.
The Getmans left Luverne in 1967 for Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and later resided in Orange County, California, and Waldorf, Maryland. Her last five years she continued to spread joy to fellow residents at Brandywine, supported by her only daughter Cynthia and her husband and Clara’s former Waldorf pastor, Donald, residents of Bethany/Ocean View.
Maybe most telling is the result of Clara’s impact that a large number of her children and grandchildren are in ministries, education and other service professions today.
Clara is the last of her generation in the immediate family circle, having been preceded in death by her parents, Albert and Clara, her brothers Thomas and Charles, and her beloved husband, Gerald (Jerry) in 1990, and all his immediate family of parents and siblings.
She is survived by her five children, Thomas, James, Cynthia, Charles and William, and her beloved “adopted” son Philippe Piot, Luverne’s first AFS student.
She was laid to rest next to her husband at the Trinity Memorial Gardens Cemetery, 3221 Mattawoman–Beantown Road, in Waldorf, Maryland on Jan. 25. Her memorial service was Sunday, Jan. 27, at 1 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church.
It is requested that memorials in her name go to: Dollars for Scholars, PO Box 822, Luverne, MN 56156 or email luvernedfs@gmail.com.
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