From Gauss and his Children

Contents 1 Biography

a.k.a. Lucretia Fawcett McCluer

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Biography

LUCRETIA CATHERINE FAWCETT (McCLUER) was born to Joseph Fawcett and Lucretia Keyes in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia on June 2, 1822. She had red hair and stood about 5' tall (Kirby n.d.). Lucretia moved by covered wagon with her parents and some siblings to Missouri in the spring of 1834 (Letter W Fawcett to J Fawcett 5/24/1834). They lived for a few years (1834-35) at Franklin in Howard County, before moving to St. Charles in 1835 (McClure 1914:145; Watson 1977:172). Lucretia and her siblings had little contract with their Fawcett or Keyes relatives in Illinois and Virginia after Lucretia moved to Missouri (Letter to L Fawcett 3/5/1894).

In St. Charles Lucretia Fawcett attended school and joined the local Presbyterian church. At age sixteen (1838) she met Samuel Campbell McCluer (Kirby n.d.). They were married on December 22, 1841 in St. Charles (Watson 1977:172-174).

They then returned to the McCluer farm (Nutshell) and were members of the Dardenne Presbyterian Church (3/20/1842-3/10 or 13/1913).

Lucretia, known as "Aunt Lutie", read considerable literature, taught church school and encouraged missionary efforts (Watson 1977:173). She knew a great deal about the early history of St. Charles County. Lucretia McCluer of O'Fallon wrote a letter to the editor of the Courier-Journal concerning a speech by Jefferson Davis in late June 1886 (Columbia MO Statesman 6/30/1886 2/8). Samuel C. McCluer died at Nutshell in March 1892. Lucretia moved in with her son, Arthur McCluer, at his nearby home--Harvest Home (Letter L McCluer to L Fawcett 3/5/1894).

All of the ten children of Samuel C. McCluer and Lucretia Fawcett were born in the Dardenne Township, St. Charles County, Missouri (See entry for S.C. McCluer). In 1900 Lucretia was living in Dardenne Township with three of her children (Curtis, Robert and Henrietta). Other sons, Arthur and Oscar McCluer, lived nearby (Census #176-179).

In 1910 Lucretia lived alone with her widowed daughter, Susan McCluer (McCarty), at Nutshell on Boonslick Road (Census #124/136). They occasionally visited Lucretia’s sister, Henrietta Gauss, at her retirement home near Columbia, Missouri. Lucretia Catherine Fawcett (McCluer) died on Monday morning, March 10, 1913 at age 91 near Columbia, Missouri, and is buried in the cemetery at the Dardenne Presbyterian Church (McElhiney 1970:75; St. Charles Cosmos-Monitor 3/12/1913:1). She was the last living child of Joseph and Lucretia Fawcett.^[1]