In the late 1930's she married Robert Ruffin Osborne, one of the founders of Community Baptist Church, and settled southwest of Greensboro, NC. Robert's first wife had tragically died in an automobile accident in 1926, leaving him with five small children. Although Clara was never able to bear children of her own, she was a wonderful wife to Robert, and a loving mother to his children.

The family lived in a large seven-room house built by Robert, his son and fellow neighbors, using lumber from his own sawmill. A woodstove and fireplace heated the house. There was no indoor plumbing and drinking water was hauled from the neighbors' well.

"I can remember staying overnight in the wintertime, sleeping on a straw mattress covered with so many quilts, I was unable to turn over!"

"Clara recycled everything, and that was before recycling was cool!"

Rainwater was collected in large wooden barrels, which was then used for bathing and washing clothes. Buttons were removed from discarded clothing, and sewn on new garments or used to replace lost buttons on existing garments. Vegetable seeds were saved, dried, and planted the following year.

Barnyard animals were an essential part of life back then. Cows not only provided milk and butter, but they were also used as the family lawn mower, of course there was the problem of watching where you stepped. If an unlucky chicken gave up his life to be the Sunday dinner, its feathers were plucked and stuffed into family pillows. Surplus milk, butter, and eggs were sold to help supplement the family income. For small gardens, the soil was cultivated with a push-plow rather than a rotary-tiller, and for large fields, a horse-drawn plow was used.

Life was not always easy for Clara, but her love of family and faith in God carried her through the tough times as well as the good. She was slow to anger, and she would often say, "the least said, is the easiest mended."