Clara Gregg Overton and Anthony Overton Jr.
Early Life
Clara Gregg Overton, born in 1867, was the daughter of Alexander Gregg, an escaped slave and successful shoemaker, businessman, and deacon from Kentucky. Alexander raised his family in Kansas, and while living in Lawrence, Kansas, Clara met Anthony Overton).
Anthony Overton Jr. was born in 1864 to Anthony Overton, Sr. and Martha Deberry Overton in Monroe, Louisiana. Anthony Overton Jr. was sent to Topeka, Kansas to attend public school. He later attended Washburn College in Topeka where he studied English and business, and studied law at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in the mid-1880s. Clara Gregg and Anthony Overton Jr. met while he was in Lawrence and they got married in 1888. They moved to the Wanamaker community of Oklahoma in the late 1880s where they played important roles in the development of Black homesteader life after the land rush. Clara served as postmaster here, and Anthony Jr. established a mercantile store and was involved in many other social, economic, and political aspects of life in Wanamaker.
Lewis, Eva Overton and Julian Herman Lewis, MD, PhD Collection, [Box 8, Folder 41], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Their Children
Clara and Anthony Jr. welcomed their son, Everett Van Overton, in 1889 and daughters, Mabel Helena Overton Fowler, Eva Overton Lewis, and Frances Madison Overton Hill, in 1891, 1893, and 1894, respectively. The family moved to Kansas City, Kansas in 1893 and lived here for a while before settling in Chicago where Anthony Jr. would go on to become an entrepreneurial power house.
![Outdoor group photo including [left to right] unknown man, Mable Helena Overton Fowler, Eva Overton Lewis, Ida Taylor Jones, Helen Pollard (?), and Anthony Overton, Jr. The women are in dresses and flower hats, and the men are in suits.](/media/images/Box_9_Folder_8_pic_3_pt_3_USE.original.png)
Lewis, Eva Overton and Julian Herman Lewis, MD, PhD Collection, [Box 9, Folder 8], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Group photo including [left to right] company salesman, Mabel Helena Overton Fowler, Eva Overton Lewis, Ida Taylor Jones, Frances Madison Overton Hill, unknown woman, and Anthony Overton Jr.
