# Representative women of New England/Clara P. Bigelow

​CLARA PHILENA BIGELOW (Mrs. George Brooks Bigelow), in maidenhood Clara Philena Bean, is a Bostonian by birth and breeding. The daughter of Ivory and Hannah M. (Noble) Bean, on the paternal side she is directly, though remotely, descended from an old Scottish clan, and through her mother is connected with the Eastman family, to which the mother of Daniel Webster belonged.
From manuscript records in the possession of Mrs. Bigelow it -is apparent that she is a descendant more immediately, on the paternal side, of John Bean (son of John and Lydia Sloper Bean), who went from Gilmanton, N.H., to Lewiston, Me., and thence to New Sharon, Me., where he died about 1828-30. His wife was Betsey Moody, a descendant of an old New England family in a collateral line with that founded by William Moody, who came from England to Ipswich, Mass., in 1633, and settled in Newbury in 1635. (See Lancaster's Genealogical History of Gilmanton, N.H.) John and Betsey were the parents of four sons and three daughters—Samuel, John, Ivory, Isaiah, Hannah, Lydia, and Sarah.
Ivory Bean, son of John and grandfather of Mrs. Bigelow, was born in Lewiston, May 7, 1791. He served as a captain in the War of 1812. He married in New Sharon (as shown by the town clerk's records), December 29, 1814, Philena Pitts Savage, of Freeman, Me. Their children, born in New Sharon, were: Orison, Ivory (born June 2, 1818), Rosanna Weymouth, Loren, Hiram Pitts, Philena, Thaxter Whitney, and James Loring. The father. Ivory, died in New Sharon in 1842.
Ivory Bean, second, son of Ivory and Phileni, married Hannah Matilda Noble, daughter of Samuel and Hannah (Eastman) Noble, of Lisbon, Me. According to a manuscript volume of one hundred and eleven pages, compiled by Mary Eastman Bridges, of San Francisco, and dated 1894, Hannah Eastman's line of descent was as follows: Roger' Eastman, born 1611 in Wales, came to America in ship "Confidence" in 1638, settled in Salisbury, Mass., where he died in 1694. SamueP Eastman, born in 1657, moved to Kingston, Me., about 1720, being one of the original grantees of that town. He married Elizabeth Severance in 1686; married in 1719, for second wife, Sarah Fifield, who died in 1726. Thomas' Eastman, born January 21, 1703, lived in Kingston, married in 1729 Abigail French. Samuel,^ son of Thomas and Abigail, born in 1730, died in 1799, married a Miss Hubbard. He seems to have lived for a while in New Hampshire, probably in Pittsfield; but about 1761 he removed to Maine. He built the Togus Bridge. SamueP Eastman, born in 1767, married Sally Stevens, and settled in Gardiner, Me. They were the parents of Hannah" (born 1806, died 1863), who became the wife of Samuel Noble, as above mentioned.
The education of Clara P. Bean began at a private school in Boston known as the "Phonetic School." Later she attended successively the Everett School, under Master Hyde, Professor York's boarding-school, where she was a student for two years, and the well-known private school of Mr. Hooper on Bowdoin Street, Boston.
She (Clara P. Bean) was married in 1869 to George Brooks Bigelow, a well-known lawyer of Boston. Mr. Bigelow was of old colonial stock, being a lineal descendant of John Biglo, of Watertown, Mass., the founder of the Bigelow family of New England. Mr. Bigelow died July 7, 1901. Of this marriage there were no children.
Mrs. Bigelow has lived and travelled abroad. While in Paris she entered as a pupil the studio of Monsieur Perrault (a pupil of the famous Bouguereau). She has studied water-colors under Susan Hale (sister of the Rev. Dr. Edward E. Hale) and others. She has also studied modelling in clay from life under the well-known sculptor, Henry Kitson.
Mrs. Bigelow is a member of many clubs, among them New England Woman's Club, Woman's Club House Corporation (of which she was one of the founders and is at present a director), the National Council of Women (life member), Boston Business League, Fathers' ​and Mothers' Club, Floral Emblem Society, Ladies' Physiological Institute, Women's Educational and Industrial Union (life member), and Phi Eta Sigma (Emerson College) Oratory. She is also a member, and was for three years secretary, of the General Washington Memorial Association.
After the death of her husband she turned her attention in another line, and entered the Emerson College of Oratory in 1901, taking the full course, and, graduating 1904, will continue through the post-graduate, 1905. She is this year (1904) a student at the Harvard Summer School.
Mrs. Bigelow is a woman of strong character. She is well known in the social world. Her sympathies are quick, her appreciation very keen, her loyalty never failing, her charity unbounded.
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