Clara Witte, 106, of Mt. Prospect, a homemaker and founder of a senior service club, often went out of her way to help people, friends and relatives said.
In 1969, she founded Golden Hours, a senior service club in Mt. Prospect that has shipped medical supplies to Africa and made bed pads for cancer patients. Mt. Prospect awarded her its Elder Honor in 1984.
Mrs. Witte died of pneumonia Thursday, Sept. 20, in Northwest Community Hospital, Arlington Heights.
Born in Medford, Okla., Mrs. Witte was raised in a sod house her father built. The oldest of 10 children, she graduated from a one-room schoolhouse in Oklahoma. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in home economics in 1921 from Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, Okla.
During the Depression, Mrs. Witte gave piano lessons and rented rooms in her house to bring in money for the family. During World War II, she worked at Kellogg Switchboard in Chicago as a timekeeper.
Until a few years ago, Mrs. Witte was an active member of the Mt. Prospect Grandmothers Club and the Mt. Prospect Women’s Club, said her daughter Esther. Mrs. Witte would deliver onion soup and homemade jellies to bedridden friends or neighbors, said another daughter, Mary Frances Duncan.
Corinne Rusteberg, president of the Grandmothers Club, said: “She was a great member and rarely missed a meeting. She did whatever she could whenever she was able.”
Survivors also include two grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday, followed by a service in Friedrichs Funeral Home, 320 W. Central Rd., Mt. Prospect.
