Clair Chandler

By Marilyn K. Wempa

Clair Chandler, who passed away at 88 on August 6, 2003, is best remembered in the community for his steadfast devotion to preserving Monroeville’s historical landmarks. Those who knew him thought of him as a soft-spoken, good natured, hardworking man who was always willing to donate his time and skills to the betterment of the community. He was all that and more.

Clair’s Widow Remembers

His wife of fifty-eight years, Marilyn said, “Not many knew Chub like I did. Clair was a remarkable man who loved to laugh. He enjoyed practical jokes. When he was young, he loved to amaze and fool his family, friends and classmates with magic tricks. From the time of our courtship, I learned he was a cutup and biggest tease in the world. I recall he gave me a printed card reading, ‘If you’d like to know how to keep an idiot busy for hours, turn this card over.’ When I did, the very same message was there! Other times he would insist I solve a wooden puzzle like a Rubic’s cube before we could leave on our dates.”

Marilyn said his classmates insisted he perform magic tricks for their high school reunion held in New Bethlehem in 1983 like he used to do fifty years earlier, and he did so with enthusiasm. Interestingly, he graduated from two high schools. After graduating from Rockville High School, which had a three-year curriculum, he went on to a fourth year at New Bethlehem High School, graduating in 1933.

Clair Recalled His Schoolboy Days

He wrote detailed remembrances for this reunion about his school days, including attending a one-room school house for the first eight grades with twenty-four other pupils. He wrote the teacher was always female and she was also the school’s nurse and janitor who maintained the potbelly stove to heat the school. There were two outhouses, one for each sex.

Clair described the two- room, two-story high school building he attended which also had no electric or plumbing. He wrote about fire escape from the second floor consisting of a rope hung out the window and how he walked two and a half miles to school while a few boys rode horses. There was a stable on the grounds to keep them and at noon time, the boys would feed their horses oats.

Carpendery Became His Passion

Son of a carpenter-farmer father and housewife mother, Clair was born February 21, 1915, in Rimersburg, Pa., and raised in Porter Township. There were six children in the family, five boys and one girl, three of whom are still living. Marilyn said Clair always did carpentry and was a certified electrician. “He always seemed to have a block of wood, a knife, and sandpaper in his hands,” Marilyn said. “Among other things, he made eight grandfather clocks for family and friends, countless toys for children, and hundreds of items for charity fund raising. When he became ill last year, we were awed to find he had seven projects in progress in his workshop.”

Although Clair tried to enlist nine times to serve in World War II, he was turned down because he had perforated eardrums caused by childhood infections. He began working for Union Switch & Signal in 1941, became a precision tool grinder, and retired thirty-six years later in 1977. Located where Edgewood Towne Center is today, this company was one of the premier places to work in the Pittsburgh area. It employed 2500 workers during its heyday in 1949.
Clair was living in Swissvale when he met Marilyn in 1945. He came to her family’s home in Edgewood to do carpentry work. It must have been love at first sight. Marilyn said they were married four months and four days later on October 12 at Edgewood Presbyterian Church. He built their first house in Penn Hills while they lived in an apartment in Wilkinsburg.

Shortly before their first child, David, was born in 1946, Marilyn fell because of a cracked sidewalk and severely hurt her back. She could no longer walk steps and was told by doctors she would be forced to use a wheelchair within five years so Clair began building a new home on a level lot located in Monroeville, designing the one floor house with wide doorways. Their daughter, Suesanna, was born in 1948, and they moved to Monroeville 1952 to the home where Marilyn resides.

Community Spirit Kindled

The couple’s love of history and community spirit became evident to residents in 1968 when became very active members in the Monroeville Historical Society. Marilyn was one of its first presidents, and is still a member. Clair saw his carpentry, masonry, and electrical skills were desperately needed to restore and maintain the deteriorated Old Stone Church and McGinley House.
Residents may not realize these structures, along with the McCully Log House, have received the protection and prestige of being designated Pittsburgh History & Landmark Foundation treasures, but it takes weekly tender loving care to uphold the desired high standards of safety and historic integrity of the Municipality and the Society.

Clair donated his talents for the next thirty-four years to benefit residents and visitors who enjoy and marvel at Monroeville’s precious heritage. His prominent legacies include spending countless hours repairing three pews to replace ones so badly rotted they couldn’t be used and designing many pew supports to match the original ones. He also designed and built the church’s wooden and glass display case and hung the large historical aerial maps in the basement. In addition, Clair rebuilt the floor and two rooms and did plastering in the McGinley House, along with making twenty-five small items that adorn this home built in the mid-1800s.

However, his biggest project for the Historical Society was restoring the McCully Log House, built about1820. Clair worked hundreds of hours over a three-year period beginning in 1992, when the two-story house was saved from destruction by the Historical Society. It was dismantled log by log, moved from James Street, and rebuilt where it sits today next to the McGinley House on McGinley Road.
According to Bill Johnson, the man who conceived the three-year McCully project: “Few people appreciated the efforts Clair made to the restoration of the McCully House, but I watched him do major carpentry work at a time in his life when arthritis affected him to the point that he could barely lift his arms above his head. He never complained, and it was his ability to lead the rest of us who had lesser skills that allowed us to accomplish what we did.”

Society members recall he did an unbelievable job of camouflaging a doorway on the outside to look like logs when no one else thought it could be done successfully. He constructed the door and window frames; then he also designed and made special wooden locks to match the windows and doors. “The work was unbelievable and the log house was ready for public tours by October, 1995,” said Dick McClain, president of the society since 1995.

One of the reasons the McCully House project was as successful as it was can be attributed to Clair’s mastery of carpentry. Bill Johnson said, “That woodworking was his life’s passion is evident from the details visible in the doors and windows, but his skills went far beyond what can be seen at the McCully Log House. A careful look at his reconstruction of an old spinning wheel gives an idea of his woodworking skills, but his precision in making complex wooden toys was probably appreciated by a wider audience.”

Photography and Designing Talents

Wood wasn’t the only medium Clair tackled and mastered. His photography and artwork talents can be seen in the 156-page book, “Hamlet to Highways, A History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania,” he and Marilyn wrote and published in 1988. Using his drafting skills, Clair chose the layout of each page for the photos and text, and identifying each photo with a number, page number, and position on the page. As an active member of the Friends of the Library, he designed and built numerous items for the Monroeville Public Library.

Contributions Recognized

After a list of the numerous projects he had accomplished was submitted, Council members of the Municipality of Monroeville chose Clair for their Resident Recognition Award in March, 2000, because of his “extraordinary contributions to the Monroeville Historical Society.” As humble and unselfish as ever, Clair’s comment about the award was, “I didn’t do anything that I didn’t enjoy.” Since Clair’s passing, the Society has placed plaques with his name on his many handiworks at their three historical sites so visitors will know how special Clair Chandler’s work and memory is.

This article appeared in Monroeville Matters,. Vol. 8, Winter/Spring 2004.