May 24, 2008... the following article was written by the Manteca Bulletin's Managing Editor, Dennis Wyatt.

Clarese brought a sense of flair to Manteca

Clarese Anderson could see the beauty - and potential - in just about anything.

Toss in her Bohemian instincts sharpened by her love of art and you had just what Manteca needed in the mid-1960s when Clarese along with her husband Stewart moved to Manteca.

The move was to allow her husband to help oversee what was left of the Spreckels Sugar empire that at the time consisted of Mendota, Woodland, Salinas and Manteca.

Manteca was a tidy, active and caring community but Clarese knew something was missing.

And unlike some who had moved here who'd turn their nose up at Manteca, she understood the smell from the sugar plant, the dust, and the nuances of a farm town was a beautiful thing as it meant local jobs and food on people's tables from San Francisco to New York City.

Clarese was a founder and president of both the Mantea Federated Women's Club and Manteca Camera Club, founder and chairperson of the Manteca Beautification Committee, served on the committee founding the Manteca Arts Council later known as the Mayor's Committee on the Arts and participated on the committee that formed the Manteca Historical Society.

The Manteca Chamber selected Anderson in 1974 as Outstanding Woman of the Year while Beta Sigma Phi International selected her as its First Lady of the Year. Manteca Soroptimists recgonized Anderson in 1996 as a Woman of Distinction.

The state Republican organization honored Anderson as Republican Woman of the Year for San Joaquin County in 1969. She also was selected as the best dressed woman in Manteca during a contest sponsored by the Manteca Bulletin in 1977

She had worked as an interior designer in various department stores in San Diego, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Her other involvements included serving on the organizing committee for the first Manteca Kindred Arts program, the organization committee for the Manteca Prayer Breakfast under the direction of Al Yeager and organizing and chairing a committee to honor all Manteca service club members at a holiday show.

She won dozens of awards for her photography and other art work as well as having studied under the venerable Ansel Adams in Yosemite.

Her life's resume, though, doesn't do justice to her spirit and temperament.

One example that captured both was her disappointment in the level of attention women seemed to give to how they dressed in Manteca.

In fairness to Manteca, she'd tell you people were mimicking the trend of the day with pedal pushers, conformity, and even wearing hair curlers in public. So instead of looking down her nose - something that Clarese was completely incapable of doing - she set about trying to encourage women to step up to the fashion plate.

She came up with a scheme for the Best Dress Woman Contest in Manteca. And for her part, Clarese did the unconventional. Her clothing did not come off the rack at Mahan's Department Store or Mars Department Store nor was it a stuck-up "cutting edge" Big City trend. Instead she encouraged the use of majestic yet bold and flowing colors with accessories and more. Clarese's sense of dress was always with class, always with flair and always in such a manner she didn't create a barrier by the clothes that she wore.

And Clarese just didn't wear clothes or life. There was always a graciousness that is hard to define. Call it Miss Manners with a Bohemian touch.

Clarese doted on her husband and daughters and always had plenty of energy left over to pursue civic endeavors and the arts.

Her civic endeavors weren't the things that build a community. Instead, they were the things that give a sense of richness to the community. She could never be an engineer as they deal primarily in function only. But she could be an architect and she was in a sense with the unique home Clarese designed on Kimberly Drive in the Bowling Green Estates on the eastern edge of Manteca. Call it artistic Californian complete with a functional atrium as the centerpiece of the living area. Call it striking. But what you couldn't call it was cookie cutter from the hint of oriental architecture to the bold California lines that were born in the Golden State due to the ability to build not just houses to withstand the elements but homes to embrace the elements.

Her civic drive, sense of class, and desire to beautify all came together in the 1990s when she came up with the idea of the Manteca Beautification Committee. For two years, she was able to enlist the help of people to disk vacant fields of weeds on Manteca's main streets and plan them with wild flowers. Spring would bring a blaze of color instead of weeds. A drought sidelined that effort but not until she tried to do the impossible - beautify Manteca's entrance at the Highway 99 and Yosemite Avenue interchange.

Clarese came close to pulling off a major make-over lining up service clubs and volunteers. But even Clarese was no match for bureaucratic logic when City Hall torpedoed the entire effort by focusing on who was going to pay for the water in perpetuity to irrigate a public area.

In a sense, it wasn't a failing as Clarese inspired others to push in their own way to transform Manteca from a dusty valley town to a place where landscaping and even water features can transform the same-old bleakness into a place with true human scale.

Clarese, if you haven't figured by now, ascended to heaven this week where I'm sure she's busy adding touches as only Clarese can.

But in a real sense Clarese hasn't died. Her spirit lives on in a street landscaping, Tidewater street lights, water features, as well as the performing arts.

While Clarese wasn't directly responsible for all of that, she was responsible for instilling a sense in many who influenced those who did that Manteca can be a beautiful place not just to raise a family but to elevate the human