John Wesley Clay was born in Caldwell County in 1880. He began his working career at age 11 as a printer’s devil on the Hickory Press and Carolinian.
After his marriage to Myrtle Brown, he established the first Clay Printing Company in Hickory.
In 1913, the Clays moved to South America where he established a printing house for the Methodist Church. During the 13 years he was in South America, he translated Bibles, hymn books and Sunday School literature into Portuguese.
He and his wife returned to the United States in 1927 with their six children, and he taught printing at the Methodist Children’s Home in Winston-Salem. In 1933 he opened Clay Printing Company. To advertise his printing business, he wrote a weekly ad for the Sunday Journal and Sentinel that contained his homey philosophy. When he decided to stop the weekly ad, the newspaper’s readers complained so much that the newspaper paid him to write the weekly column which he named “My Notions.” The column ran in the newspaper from 1937 to 1966.
Clay taught a Bible class at Centenary Methodist Church for almost 27 years. The class had 300 members, and Clay often held the class outdoors, sometimes in the mountains.
Clay also wrote several small books, poems and essays, in addition to his columns. He passed away in 1966.
Photo courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
