This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: McDowell, Robbins Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/2dB.2ACI/2608 Message Board Post: The Ligonier, PA "Echo" issue of 1 April 1966, p. 3, cols. 3-4 MRS. CLARA McDOWELL One of the matriarchs of Ligonier passed away Thursday at her home at the age of 95. She was Clara Robbins McDowell, widow of John W. McDowell, Ligonier Borough's last fulltime operating blacksmith who died in 1957. Mrs. McDowell's funeral service was held Monday in D. Paul Wilkinson Funeral Home with Rev. Benton McKee officiating; interment was in Ligonier Valley Cemetery. She was born Sept. 27, 1870, in Adamsburg, daughter of Samuel P. and Sophia Eicher Robbins, and had lived in Ligonier since childhood. She was a member of Ligonier Methodist Church for more than seven decades, was a charter member of its Foreign Missionary Society, the Philathea Sunday School Class, the Women's Society of Christian Service, and for many years was active in the local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She is survived by a son (Ligonier Borough Councilman Emmett E. McDowell), four daughters (Mrs. Donald H. Robb of Ligonier, Mrs. Samuel L. Kurtz of Harrisburg, Mrs. A.H. Kratske and Mrs. Charles H. Small of Chambersburg), 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. ________________________________________________