Bruce Clark

Bruce Clark
Our beloved husband, father, and grandfather died 7 July 2007 at home surrounded by his family.

Born 9 April 1918 in Georgetown, Idaho, to Marvin Ezra Clark and Alice Budge Clark. Delivered by Emma Woolley Clark, paternal grandmother, a midwife. All four great-grandparents Ezra Thompson Clark, William Budge, John Wickersham Woolley, and James Athay were early Mormon pioneers to Utah. Attended grade school and two years of high school in Georgetown. Graduated from Montpelier (Idaho) High School in 1935 at age 17. Sang in male quartet and gave salutatory talk at graduation exercises. Learned to read before starting school and was an extensive reader and lover of books all of his life. Played the violin and clarinet as a boy and young man, also acted in many school and church drama productions. Worked on the family farm during growing-up years. Loved farm animals but hated milking cows.

Was a devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout his life. Served as a missionary in the Northwestern States Mission in Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and Canada from 1939 to 1941. Was ordained a Seventy at the beginning of his mission and continued as a Seventy until ordained a High Priest when called as a counselor to Bishop Ellis Rasmussen in 1953. Served as Bishop (ordained by Joseph Fielding Smith) of the Crest View Second Ward (later named the Orem Fifteenth Ward, then the Cherry Hill Second Ward) in Orem, Utah, from 1954 to 1961. Served a second time as a Bishop, at BYU, three years later.

Served on several High Councils. Was an ordinance worker in the Provo Temple for several years. Ordained a Patriarch in April 1970 (ordained by Thomas S. Monson) and served as Patriarch of the Brigham Young University Fifth Stake for 32 years, until health problems necessitated his release in 2002. Served as Patriarch with eight Stake Presidents and gave 2,841 Patriarchal Blessings.

Following high school graduation, Bruce enrolled in fall 1935 as a chemistry major at the University of Utah. Changed major to English after church mission and graduated from U. of Utah with B.A. in English in June 1943. Then served in U. S. Army for three years (1943 to1946) during World War Two, including two years in the headquarters battalion of the large Thirteenth Replacement Depot in Hawaii, where soldiers were rehabilitated from combat duty and processed for reassignment, and where Bruce was a specialist in army communications and became Director of Publications.

After release from the army in spring 1946 Bruce immediately enrolled at Brigham Young University, where in one year he completed his M. A. in English, taught part time, and married. In a poetry class in summer 1946 he met Ouida Raphiel from Louisiana. They fell in love, and were married in the Salt Lake Temple on 7 November 1946. In fall 1947 they moved to Salt Lake City, where Bruce enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Utah, taught half-time in Freshman English for three years, and was the first student to complete a Ph.D. in English at the U. of Utah. The first two of their six children were born to Bruce and Ouida during their three years in Salt Lake City.

In fall 1950 Bruce was invited to return to Brigham Young University as a full-time English teacher, and thus began a career of over forty years of devoted teaching. He officially retired from B.Y.U. in 1983 but continued to teach part-time until 1992. During his many years at B.Y.U. he had extensive administrative responsibilities but always regarded teaching as his first love. He loved teaching so much that even when his administrative assignments were heaviest he continued to teach several classes each semester. Among his favorite classes were Shakespeare, Browning, English Literature of the Romantic and Victorian Periods, the English Novel, and the Short Story.

Although teaching was his first love, Bruce was called on for extensive administrative assignments at B.Y.U. From 1960 to 1965 he served as Chairman of the English Department, and for sixteen years, from 1965 to 1981, he was Dean of the College of Humanities. In addition, he was given dozens of committee assignments, including several committees for university-wide curriculum revision, several university building committees, Planning Committee for Inauguration of BYU Honors Program 1953-54, Chair Mayhew Creative Awards Committee1963-83, BYU Studies Editorial Board 1965-81, Executive Secretary Mayhew Awards Trust Fund Governing Board 1967-81, Chair BYU Retirement Committee 1967-69, Chair BYU Library Building Planning Committee 1973, Chair BYU Replacement Buildings Committee 1973-76, Chair BYU Faculty Remembrance Fund Executive Committee 1979-81, Executive Secretary David and Beatrice Evans Biography Award Committee 1980-85, and many other committees, even including serving on the BYU Athletic Advisory Council 1963-68.

Professionally Bruce's first love was teaching, and administrative assignments made a second career. A third professional devotion was writing. Although he never found time to do as much writing and publishing as he wanted to do, writing was still a major activity of his life. In 1963 he was asked by church leaders to prepare a volume of literature for study in the literature program of the Relief Society. He requested that his colleague and friend Robert Thomas work with him as co-author, and together they compiled a volume of poems, short stories, and essays with critical discussions that was published in 1964 as Volume One of Out of the Best Books: An Anthology of Literature. This volume was so successful that four additional volumes were published in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969, and these were used as study manuals throughout the church in the Relief Society literature program for seven years, 1964 through 1971. Even more widely published was an essay "The Challenge of Teaching," first printed in BYU Studies in Autumn 1964 and later reprinted several times in national journals. In addition to these well-known writings, Bruce wrote or edited more than a dozen other volumes, including the popular Richard Evans' Quote Book in 1971, Great Short Stories for Discussion and Delight in 1979, and a four-volume Personal and Family History in 1996-98. He also wrote and published several dozen shorter booklets, essays, and articles. In 1990-92 he served as an assistant editor for the five-volume Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

Among special recognitions received at BYU, Bruce was given the Karl G. Maeser Award for Teaching Excellence in 1972, the David O. McKay Humanities Award in 1983, and a Presidential Citation for Distinguished Service to BYU by President Rex Lee at BYU Commencement Exercises in August 1994. Bruce's leadership and influence were recognized by his being called on to give BYU Assembly talks in October 1955, September 1964, September 1971, November 1971, May 1976, and August 1979. He has been listed in Who's Who in America since 1962. His travels, usually with his wife, included several visits to Europe (including Russia) and trips to the Far East (Hong Kong, Japan, North and South Korea, The Philippines, Taiwan) and the Middle East (Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey).

Many times Bruce said that the three great loves of his life were (1) the Savior, the church, and service in the church; (2) teaching; and (3) his wife and family. As he grew old, his teaching and service to BYU ended, and his service in the church diminished, but his love for his family continued undiminished, including love for all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whom he adored. And there was another love also of the land, and of the plants and animals and birds that grew on the land. As a boy growing up on the family farm Bruce had loved some things about it but disliked other things, such as milking cows. One thing he especially remembered with fondness was working with his mother in growing a large garden, and as a man he loved to grow flowers and garden vegetables to share with family and neighbors. Bruce left the farm as a young man to become a college professor but returned increasingly to a love of growing things in his old age.

Bruce was preceded in death by his mother (in 1955 at age 62), his father (in 1991 at age 100), his older brother Floyd (in 2001 at age 85), and his oldest son Bradley (in November 2004 at age 54). He is survived by his wife Ouida, his sons Robert (Orem, Utah), Jeffrey (Washington D.C.), and Shawn (Spanish Fork, Utah), his daughters Lorraine Skarda (Provo, Utah) and Sandra (Orem, Utah), his daughter-in-law Janette Clark (Sugar City, Idaho), and his sisters Roma Phelps Burbank (Ovid, Idaho) and Reola Clark (Salem, Massachusetts)--also 24 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and many nephews, nieces, and their families.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. in the Cherry Hill Stake Center, 400 East 1700 South, Orem. Friends may call Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Sundberg-Olpin Mortuary, 495 South State St. Orem, and also 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. prior to the services at the stake center. Interment will be in the Orem City Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.sundbergolpinmortuary.com