Clara Louise Ball

East Lyme - Clara Louise (Seiferlein) Ball, 90, passed away on Dec. 21, 2012. She was predeceased by her husband, Albert Thompson Ball of East Lyme, in 2004.

Mrs. Ball was born on July 6, 1922, in Saginaw, Mich., the second daughter of Christian L. Seiferlein and Leonora Rose (Kull) Seiferlein. The family lived in Bridgeport, Mich., and Clara graduated Saginaw High School in 1940.

Her talent for cooking and baking helped make the family-run restaurant where she worked with her parents, "The Coffee Shop" in Bridgeport, a local success. She later operated the Black Point Drive-In in Niantic.

Clara was active in Church Women United for years, as well as East Lyme Women's Club and State Women's Club. She was very active with the Niantic Community Church.

She worked in the deli department of the IGA Supermarket in Flanders. She wrote short stories and was honored with first prize for her short story about seeing Amelia Earhart fly over and wave to her from the open cockpit aircraft. She was a Girl Scout leader and involved in many aspects of her children's lives. Clara had a wide array of interests from vegetable gardening, rock collecting, painting, wood-working, to all sorts of arts and crafts. She loved music and could often be heard humming while she was working. In 2007, Clara fulfilled a lifelong ambition of retracing the route of her father-in-law's 1800s Alaskan Gold Rush expedition. Clara panned for gold and even caught two salmon.

Not long after her husband passed away in 2004, she was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and struggled with this disease and other complications with her health since then. After a long and heroic battle, she is now at last at peace.

Clara is survived by her sister, Mary (Seiferlein) Leach of Frankenmuth, Mich.; her three children, daughter, Mary (Ball) Sauer and her husband, Jerome, and their two children, Timothy and Matthew of Ogden, Iowa; her son, Fred Ball and his wife, Loretta, and their two children, Christian and Peter of Brookfield; and her daughter, Cynthia Ball of Wiesbaden, Germany.

A spring memorial service is planned.