RICHARD CONRAD CLARKE

Personal History and Recollections

Richard Conrad Clarke

Richard Conrad Clarke was born 30 September 1917 in Los Angeles, California, the son of Lionel Conrad Clarke and Ada Imogene Smith, and raised in Colton, California, where his father worked at the Colton Cement Plant. He graduated from Stanford University with the Class of 1939 and married DeVonne on 28 May 1938. He spent thirty-two years as an engineer at UCLA, serving in the Office of Architects & Engineers and later at the UCLA Hospital, and served his Church as Bishop of the Van Nuys Second Ward, as a counselor in the Stake Presidency, and with DeVonne as a missionary in the Ventura Mission Office. Together they raised three children and lived to count twenty-one grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren.

In the late 1980s, on a personal computer his son helped him choose, Richard wrote this history: forty-one chapters covering his childhood in Colton, his wartime service, fifty years of marriage, portraits of the people he loved, and his testimony. He finished the heart of it in November 1989, writing that the record existed to answer the question “Where were you on the night of . . .?” and expressing the hope that “nothing will be lost in years to come.”

It was nearly lost. These chapters were recovered decades later from his original WordPerfect files and are presented here exactly as he wrote them, with his own spellings, his own candor, and his own voice preserved throughout. Begin anywhere; he wrote it for you.

Table of Contents