Clara Paulk

Most folks who have lived in Port O’Connor or Seadrift for a good, long while will recognize this smiling face. She was one of the helpful tellers at the local bank. Beginning in 1989 at First State Bank of Seadrift, and then at First National Bank in Port O’Connor, Clara was there to assist you until her retirement in 2010.

Clara was born in Port O’Connor in 1941 to Pat and Clara Hawes. She was the second of fourteen children, all of whom are happily still with us, most still residing in Port O’Connor.

She has happy memories of her childhood in Port O’Connor, and fondly remembers her visits to the Matagorda Island Lighthouse, where she and the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Lorna Barr would play on the lighthouse steps.

Clara met her husband Fisher when he was stationed here with the Air Force. They moved to Maryland, living there for 18 years and raising four children.

Moving back to Port O’Connor, Fisher and Clara’s brother Mark, bought and operated the Port O’Connor Food Store. After her husband passed away, she continued to work at the Food Store until 1989.

In recent years, she and her brother Teddy went on mission trips to Antigua, Guatemala. For nine summers, they traveled there where Clara worked with disabled children while Teddy did maintenance and construction on the orphanage. “I’d go again if I could,” she said.

Nowadays, Clara helps others as a volunteer for Hospice of South Texas and a member of the Serra Club of Victoria, which supports seminary students, and helping out at her church, St. Joseph Catholic in Port O’Connor. She also works part time at her brother Teddy’s POC Hardware.

When asked if she still enjoys living in Port O’Connor since it has grown and changed so much, she replied, “As long as we don’t have a red light, I’m good.”

The children of Pat and Clara Hawes:

Front row: Sally, Missy, Clara, Marian, Madeline
Back row: Teddy, Forrest, Freddie, Father Roger, Philip, Michael, Leslie, Paul, Mark.