Clark Lamar "Trab" Travis

On the last day of June 1926 the first child born from the union of Jewell Caldwell Clark (1904 - 1954) and Clara Bell Miles Clark (1906 - 1990) came into this world. They named him Travis Lamar and he was born at their home in Shelbyville, Texas. Travis was followed by siblings Henry J. (1928), JC (1931) and Frances Laverne (1935). Dad was the first to be born and the last to pass - doing perhaps what his parents may have wished - to see to his little brothers and sisters as long as he could. Dad never went beyond the fourth grade in school his father needing him to help to tend to crops to help feed the family. Instead, dad graduated from the school of hard knocks and boy did his generation - the greatest generation - have those. Three years after dad was born the stock market crashed which sparked what would be known as the Great Depression. But back in the hills and deep tall piney forests of Shelby County the depression likely barely noticed since living from day to day was already a given; no electric power, no running water for their cabin, an outhouse for necessities, a wood stove for cooking, but there were fish and game for the taking and the family raised their own crops. During the Second World War dad enlisted in the United States Army but by the time he was ready to fight for his country the war had ended. However, he was sent to occupied Japan and was assigned to be the chauffeur for a JAG officer (Col. Brown) who sat on one of the panel of judges assigned to preside over the trials of Japanese war criminals among which included General Tojo. On the way to court each day they drove past Gen. Douglas McArthur's headquarters and would often see the General smoking his trademark corncob pipe. He experienced his first and likely only earthquake there - having no idea what was happening. While the Colonel was in trial much of each day dad was allowed to drive around the environs of Tokyo and with friends skied down the slopes Mt. Fuji. After his two year stint in the Army ended with an Honorable Discharge he returned to the hills of east Texas for a short time before deciding to move to the gulf coast where post-war jobs in the petro-chemical industry abounded. He took a job with the Diamond Alkali Corporation in 1948 a company which he would work for as head operator in the cell repair division of the plant in Deer Park until his retirement. When he retired in 1985 he had built what seemingly today was an impossible perfect attendance record of having been neither late nor absent for thirty years!

In 1952 he married Frances Darlene Taylor of Tyler, Texas. The couple first lived in LaPorte before moving to Pasadena in 1956. They were one of the first families to live in Cresthaven Estates which was then just a prairie as was much of the area. To that union was born an only son, Dennis G. Clark. When dad died they were only a month short of having celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. They moved to their current home in Deer Park in 1976.

Dad was an avid bowler (he was a lefty by the way) and played on the Diamond team for many years and played in many tournaments. He also played on the Diamond softball team and then continued playing that sport into retirement - until while pitching one afternoon he was hit in the throat by a hit right back at him which damaged his jugular vein causing a stroke. His good friend Sonny Childress rushed him to Bayshore Hospital and he survived.

Beginning in 1960 dad's passion for the national pastime led him to take up a second job as an amateur baseball umpire, a career which he stayed with for about 50 years. Throughout this period he umpired everything from T-Ball and little league, to high school and semi-pro baseball games. Among the highlights of this career were umpiring high school ballgames in which Nolan Ryan pitched in Alvin and which Andy Pettit pitched for the Deer at Deer Park School. He was also selected to umpire a game for the Texas High School Coaches Assoc. which was played in the Astrodome. He and his son Dennis umpired many ballgames together for a period of over 20 years. Dad was also an avid follower of the Deer Park Deer football team and from the late 1940's until he could no longer make it up the stadium steps in the late 1990's he rarely missed a home game and almost always attended their away games. He also lived to see the Deer win their first ever state baseball championship this year and remarkably see the Houston Astros win their first world series!

Dad had been a member of the First Baptist Church of Deer Park and this year had received his 40 year pin as a member of the Deer Park Masonic Lodge 1362.

After he retired from employee in 1985 from what was by then Occidental Petroleum Company he continued to umpire baseball, managed and played softball with the Deer Park and Pasadena Senior Teams; worked in his garden as he had for most of his life, improved his golf game at which he had played since the early 1960's - finally achieving his goal of hitting a hole-in-one at Occidental Petroleum's nine hole golf course at their Deer Park plant (hole no. 3). He was a marshal at the Battleground Golf Course in Deer Park for several years. He was active in volunteer work with the Golden Age Division of the Deer Park Chamber of Commerce and the Salvation Army. He was a member of Deer Park AARP and served 3 years as travel director; a charter member and served on the board of the East Harris County Activity Center; he was also a member of the Senior Friends of Bayshore Hospital.

He leaves to mourn his loss and to celebrate his life his loving wife Frances of 65 years, his son Dennis, daughter-in-law Sandra, grandsons Kevin, Mike, Randy, and Travis and several great-grandchildren. Also surviving are his sister-in-law Sue Howard and her husband AJ who dad was particularly fond of; brother-in-law E.J. (Jack) Taylor and his wife Carol; many nieces and nephews and long time family friends Gerald and Amy Clark, Carolyn Childress (Sonny's wife), and many others over the years in this area. He is predeceased by his son Jimmy Lamar (from a previous marriage), his mother and father as well as all his siblings and their spouses, favorite nephew Ronnie Clark and many cherished friends including his good friend Sonny Childress who passed earlier this year.

Services and internment took place on December 20, 2017 at Grand View Memorial Park in Pasadena. Brother Ernest Weedon former pastor of First Baptist Church of Deer Park conducted the service with dad's long time neighbor and friend, Dr. Dee Bowman, former pastor of the Southside Church of Christ, giving the eulogy.