July 24, 1933 – January 21, 2026
Clara Ann Clothiaux died peacefully at her home in Auburn, Alabama, on Wednesday afternoon, January 21, 2026, with her kids by her side. What a gift she was to so many. Clara was affectionately known and will be remembered as Dr. C, Ms. Clo, Mom, Grams, The E Coli Lady, and The Clutch (based on her Polish name, “Klarcia,” which her family playfully translated to “Clutcha”).
Clara was born to Pearl Michalek and Daniel Ortiz of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 24, 1933. She was the middle child of three children with Dan being her older brother and Phyllis her younger sister. (Another brother, Philip, died as an infant). Early life was not easy for Clara’s family. Her father, Daniel, who had immigrated to the U.S. from Spain, died of pneumonia in 1936 when Clara was just 2 years old. This left her mother, Pearl, a second generation Polish American, to fend for her three small children during the Great Depression with only a seventh-grade education.
Clara’s family were materially poor, but through the years, they spoke only of joy and good times together in those years growing up. Stories of mischievousness were prolific. Clara got a kick out of recounting the time her brother Dan blew the kitchen cabinets off the wall with fireworks he intended to sell. When it snowed, her sister, Phyllis, would adopt grave markers to use as sled jumps, careening down hills in the steep cemetery across the street. When teenage Clara left her job at a drugstore up on Brownsville Road in Carrick, she lost 20 pounds. Soon after, the store owner ran into her and joked that he never should have given her free rein on the roasted nuts, which she had to admit were her weakness!
Clara matriculated at the University of Pittsburgh in sciences and engineering in the early 1950s when few women did. Most of her classmates were men, including the Pittsburgh quarterback that her friends all wanted to meet. She laughed about how spending time in classes and labs with rooms full of men dissolved all illusions of romance. But she did find her beau, Eugene John Clothiaux, while in school. He was working toward his doctorate in physics at Pitt. As Clara would tell the story to her kids, getting married before obtaining a degree was “the kiss of death,” so she made her future husband wait until she finished her degree. She also said she intentionally did not learn how to type out of fear she would be forced into a job as a secretary, an honorable job, but not for Clara who was going to be a scientist.
After schooling, Clara became a teacher before accepting employment at Westinghouse Electric Co. in Pittsburgh, where she worked on the first nuclear reactors to go into naval ships, including the first atomic-powered cruiser, the USS Long Beach, and the atomic-powered carrier USS Enterprise. Story has it that Admiral Hyman Rickover, “Father of the Nuclear Navy,” acknowledged her intellectual contributions to the Navy not realizing who she was and said, “That man should get a raise.” Yep. MAN. (She did get a raise.) As with all topics, Clara would grow to have a nuanced, complicated understanding of the costs/benefits of nuclear energy, but she said at the time they were developing it that the prospect of not having to wipe coal soot off the walls and breathe coal dust that polluted the air was something to be excited about.
Clara had many passions. The one for which she was most widely appreciated was educating children and adolescents in math and science. She taught math everywhere Eugene’s work led their growing family: Las Cruces, New Mexico, back to Pittsburgh, then to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and finally to Auburn, Alabama, where she lived until her death in 2026. In 1978, while teaching in the Auburn City Schools and raising six children, she earned her PhD in math education at Auburn University. As part of her doctorate research, she trekked all over Lee County to conduct studies on how children learned abstract math concepts. Piaget was a hot topic at the dinner table, and her kids learned about concepts like “constructivism” and “conservation” and also what street addresses to avoid if you didn’t want to get attacked by a crazy dog! It was her rigorous exploration of how children learned that made her so effective at quickly identifying what mathematical notions were not making sense to a child. She was able to set them straight to wondrous ends time and again. Her children, grandchildren, and countless others from the community got through college math and physics with her help. She held a steady presence at the kitchen table every night of the week working through problems.
Clara was awarded the Presidential Award for Science and Mathematics Teaching in 1985, which involved a trip to D.C. to honor two recipients from each state for excellence in teaching. Her primary excitement about the trip was in meeting and talking with the other teachers from across the country, and she came home energized. Once the award came and went, she never talked about it again. But she sure did talk about the many wonderful children she met on a daily basis!
Clara’s strong belief in fairness came into full display when she learned that there was a pay discrepancy between male and female teachers in Auburn City Schools. On her own time and over several years, she collected the data necessary to demonstrate these discrepancies and to put pressure on Auburn City Schools superintendent and school board to eliminate it. The school board came to agree with her assessment and an equitable pay scale was created. As one can imagine, this did not occur without controversy, but Clara was never one to shy away from doing the right thing because it might upset someone. She knew people would come around when the dust settled.
Growing up, the dinner table was an amazing place with Clara and Eugene fully invested in inspiring their kids to have curious minds, to dig into their interests and follow their dreams, just as they had done themselves. Clara eventually wrote a small book about her teaching experiences and what she learned and had shared with the family over the years. The cover of the book is adorned by a hand drawing of Clara by a student. It depicts an arrow through her head, a vector, representing Clara drilling into the students’ heads what vectors mean and how they are used in math and physics. In a smaller gesture of enthusiasm for teaching, Clara also had a sweatshirt custom printed that said, “Physics is Fun!” She proudly wore it when she sold hotdogs at football games to raise money for the science club. She quipped that she was going to write a book called, “How I Feel When I’m with You,” and no one would know she was talking about math.
In retirement, Clara’s contributions to the Auburn community did not end. She grew passionate as a citizen scientist monitoring water quality in streams across Lee County at 22 different sites. In one article about this work of hers, she was referred to as “The E Coli Lady.” She found great amusement in this title. Through this work, she annoyed more than one developer, but that did not faze her one bit. She made it known on the record that growth could occur with care for the watershed that all life relies on. Thus, when “E Coli Lady” was called an “uppity lady” in the newspaper, she chuckled. As if that was going to stop her! She loved her team of citizen scientists and thought politicizing clean water was absurd. Again, when you do the right thing, people come around.
Clara was always steady, no drama, quietly brilliant, and supportive of everyone in her life–her students and colleagues whom she loved, her church community at St. Michael’s, her sister and brother, extended family, her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren. Clara’s daughter, Monica, had always promised she would care for her mom to the end and moved back to Auburn in 2019 to live with her over the last seven years of her life. Monica did an amazing job throughout, with unsurpassed dedication through times easy and hard, and under the hardship that comes with still having a home and ongoing life in the Washington, DC, area. Monica assembled the most wonderful cast of caregivers to assist Clara over the last 18 months of her life. The family is so, so grateful to Monica and her team of caregivers for facilitating Clara’s happiness in life to the end. A special thank you goes to Carolyn Neloms, Carolyn Carr, and Chineta Hill with heartfelt thanks also to Angie, Vanessa, Maria, Debbie, Michelle, and Laney.
Clara is survived by three of her children: Eugene E. Clothiaux (Jessica Staley), Monica Clothiaux, and Jeanne Clothiaux (Mark Solomon), and loads of grandkids and great grandkids. She is also survived by her sister, Phyllis Kaufman. Clara is preceded in death by her husband Eugene J. Clothiaux, her three children Pierre Laurent Clothiaux (Kaye Clothiaux), Ana-Aegi Ortiz Clothiaux, and John Daniel Clothiaux (Mary Styslinger), and brother Daniel Ortiz.
Clara’s funeral will be held at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Auburn, AL, on Saturday, January 31st, at 11:00 a.m. A memorial reception with slide show will follow at 12:00 p.m. Burial to take place at Memorial Park Cemetery after the reception. Her loving community near and far is invited to attend.
Frederick-Dean Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements.
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