Feature 094: 620 North Delaware Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Clark House.
Architectural Style: Queen Anne.
Construction Date: ca. 1888.
Period 1 of Harry S Truman's Life: The Period of Pre-Significance, before 1890.
Tax Identification: 26-310-20-17.
Legal Description: McCauley Park Addition, block 1, lot 4.
Description: Contributing two-story wood-frame dwelling; irregular in shape; hipped roof with cross gables, clad with composition shingles; exterior siding; one-over-one double-hung sash windows; wrap-around porch (first and second floors) supported by round wood columns; stone foundation. Slightly raised lot has lawn and some foundation shrubbery.
• Alterations: Two-story gabled roof addition to the rear; siding altered; wrap-around porch altered.
• Contributing wood-frame single-car garage in rear built during period of significance [Feature 095].
History/Significance: The original owner of this late 1880s Queen Anne style house is not known. The family of John B. Clark, proprietor of a general merchandise store in Independence, occupied this house in the early 1900s until around 1920. Roderick and Sarah J. Lively May lived in the house in the 1920s and 1930s.
Roderick, a native of Scotland, immigrated to North America in 1873, married Sarah J. Lively in Canada in 1877, and came to Independence in 1883. He first worked as a cooper before founding the May Coal and Feed Company. In 1900, he became a bishop in the RLDS church. Roderick and Sarah raised five children: Niphi J., Charles, Alvin R., William H., and Mrs. Pearl Crick. Roderick May died in 1930. In the 1940s and 1950s, Ella G. Fetch and Margaret Meredith lived at 620 North Delaware.