Clara Redmond, 1907-2003, first Ashtabula County female Deputy Sheriff

One of the most charming homes in the Village of Jefferson is the former Redmond home. Four generations of the Redmond family called the quaint, gingerbread-trimmed dwelling, home. The outstanding feature of the house is its Folk Victorian-style porch which was added to the traditional Greek Revival dwelling. Today, the house is painted blue with white trim and is located at 306 North Chestnut Street. It is currently owned by Tom and Mary Ellen Talcott. Pastor Joe Laing and his wife Tammy and son Joseph are the current tenants. Clara Redmond (1907-2003) lived in the house all her life except for a few years spent in California. She never married or had children, but she and her family had a great impact on the history of Jefferson. Her father Howard J. and mother, Sarah Jane Whittaker were both Canadians. After their marriage in 1892, they moved to Jefferson and in 1894, Redmond was admitted to the bar. He read law in the office of Stephen Northway and E. H. Fitch, a Jefferson firm. He became an attorney and director for the Jefferson Banking Company and a host of other firms, including Aetna Insurance, Travelers Insurance, State Auto Insurance and State Medical Insurance Companies. Howard and Sarah Jane had two children, including Ivan, born in Jefferson on June 7, 1897, and died Jan. 1, 1898. On April 7, 1907, Clara was born and she would live until 2003. In an Oct. 4, 1865, news clipping it is recorded that, “Rufus Houghton of Andover has purchased the residence of Philo Amsden on Chestnut St in this village and will soon occupy it. Mr. Amsden goes to the country to try the life of a farmer, having bought out Mr. Frayer in the northern part of the town.” Howard purchased the Redmond house, according to a news clipping of April 7, 1898, from Philo Amsden and made repairs and alterations which greatly improved the house and surroundings. In 1908, when Clara was just one year old, her father bought the north half of the brick block on the west side of North Chestnut Street known as the Warren Block or Hippodrome Building. Howard purchased it from George Ross for $1,700. The entire block burned down and was located next to the old commissioners’ offices. At an unknown date, Attorney Redmond occupied the former offices of attorney, Charles Lawyer, in Lawyers Row. Redmond bought the office for $2,000, according to an undated article. From 1905-1917, Howard Redmond served as mayor of Jefferson. He is remembered for making great improvements in the Jefferson water, sewer and street systems. One of the pictures with this column shows the first paving of Jefferson’s streets. The picture was taken in front of the Redmond home and at the intersection of North Chestnut and Pine Streets and is dated circa 1910-1913. H.J. Redmond became so well-known and respected that he ran for prosecuting attorney and won. The most difficult case he tried was that of Floyd Hewitt, a 16-year-old Conneaut youth who had confessed to the murder of a housewife and her small son. Hundreds jammed the Common Pleas Court in Jefferson to hear Redmond try the case and demand the death penalty. Hewitt was convicted. I have all the news clippings from the trial and it may be a future story. Redmond became one of the best-known attorneys in northern Ohio. In 1930, the Gazette reported that Clara Redmond, 23 years old, was such a good marksman that she owned her own 300-rifle and a 16-gauge pump shot gun. She loved to hunt and often went with the Albert Moses family to Pennsylvania to hunt deer and bear. In 1942, during World War ll, she worked as an inspector at the Fisher Body Plant in Cleveland. Today this building is the IX Center. Originally B-29s were going to be built there, but the plans changed and only parts for the B-29s were turned out. Men were scarce on the home front during the war and as you can see from the photos, women were in the majority of the workers. Clara served as a Deputy Sheriff with the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Department from 1955 until she retired in 1980. In 1955 she became the first woman deputy sheriff in Ohio to carry a weapon and have full powers to make an arrest and drive a patrol car. She was often asked to tell of her experiences as a deputy sheriff serving under Sheriff Tom Fasula. In 1955, she shared with the Jefferson Rotary Club that, “My work takes me at any hour of the day or night and I see many distressing things. I frequently have to accompany females sent to the insane hospitals, with one of the men as driver of the car.” She also said, “I am convinced that there ought to be a state or county institution where the many cases not criminal and not insane, but on the border line, could have the attention they deserve. So far as juvenile first offenders are concerned, my sympathies are touched if the things done that bring children into court for the first time are not wanton and willful destruction or property or injury to others, but if the offender is a repeater, then the punishment should match. Unhappily in many cases requiring police action, the punishment and the shame bear more heavily on the family and friends than the culprit.” Clara loved to fish and was an enthusiastic angler. She was a long-time member of the Jefferson Conservation Club because of her strong interest in that field. She loved to travel by car and enjoyed taking trips. Her last cross-country car trip was in 1994. Chet Lampson, Gazette editor, wrote in a 1978 editorial about a conversation he had with Howard Redmond. He said, “When I bought my first Ford, I used to take the County Commissioners around the county paying my own costs and doing the driving for the magnificent sum of $5.00 a day. On one day trip, the Mayor Redmond went along. We traveled at 20 miles an hour. (He died in 1936 so it was prior to that.) The speed was so ‘terrific’ that Howard left us at Ashtabula and came home in more safety on the old P&O Electric that ran from Conneaut to Ashtabula and south to Jefferson. The rails of this abandoned railway are under the concrete on Chestnut St.” Clara would live a full life in the same home her parents bought in 1898. In 2003, she died at the age of 96 after a few weeks at the Jefferson Geriatric Center, now the Jefferson Rehabilitation Center. Her ashes are in the Redmond burial plot in Oakdale Cemetery. Clara’s mother, Sarah Jane, would live in the house at 306 North Chestnut until her death and have her funeral there on May 30, 1932. Howard J. Redmond died in November of 1936 and his services were also held at the Redmond home at 306 North Chestnut Street.

Clara Redmond, 1907-2003, first Ashtabula County female Deputy Sheriff

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