Clarence Sharp Barker by Ruth H. Barker

April 1, 1903 - December 3, 1996

Life when I was a boy living in Salt Lake City was vastly different from what it is today. Main Street had a center line of tall utility posts with cross bars carrying electric wires. Two big railroad size steel tracks carried electric street cars carrying traffic to and from suburbs. Horses pulled wagons carrying loads of goods and supplies. Some carriage and rigs also were also pulled by horses. The clatter of horses’ hoofs and the clang of street cars have been replaced by the steady roar we hear today on busy streets. Our homes were served by electric lights and many had small outhouses instead of the convenient indoor plumbing we enjoy today. There was no such thing as radio or television. Theaters had live actors and actresses and singers. At nights we read a lot more than is prevalent today. My mother had a treadle operated sewing machine. Electrically operated washing machines were not known. Our kitchen had a coal-fired range for cooking and heating. A “water jacket” inside the range heated water. This was piped to the kitchen sink and to a large steel tank which supplied the bathroom.

I was born April 1, 1903 in a small story and a half frame home at 272 4th Avenue, Salt Lake City, to Frederick Ellis Barker and Cecilia Sharp, the youngest of six children.

This was in the I8th Ward, one of the original wards of Salt Lake Stake

organized in 1849. I was a member of the 18th Ward virtually continuously

until the last of December 1972 when I moved to Phoenix.

My father had this frame home built which was a twin to one at 274 4th Ave. occupied by my Uncle Joseph C. Sharp and his wife, Jane Bennett.

Soon after my birth my parents and their three other sons and two daughters, and my grandmother, Margaret Condie, moved into a new two story brick home at 145 Fourth Avenue, which was my home until my marriage.

City Creek, only a quarter of a block west, still flowed through an open channel. On the east hillside nearby were banks of the Big Ditch which had carried irrigation and culinary water from City Creek along the hill to 4th Avenue where it flowed eastward.

Many exploratory trips were made by me with other boys, chiefly my next older brother Ira, my sisters and neighboring children. We would go pick spring flowers and in the fall pick black currants or anytime to find a shady retreat (there were many willows and trees along the banks) to carve whistles, make exploratory hikes, hear stories and study nature.

J. H. Paul, a University of Utah instructor and authority on bird life and flowers, lived just around the corner on Canyon Road. He inspired an interest in the flora and fauna.

First employment outside our home was at wages considerably lower than today. A Deseret Newspaper route paid $2.00 or $2.50 a week. Digging or other manual labor paid ten cents an hour. Prices paid for commodities were correspondingly low. A loaf of bakers’ bread sold for ten cents. Shoes for boys cost three or four dollars. Half soles and heel repairs cost no more than two dollars and fifty cents.

It was into a family reared in an atmosphere of pioneer thrift and hardship that I was born. Food was not wasted. The children were served only what they could eat. They were trained to waste no food and to care meticulously for their clothing.

As a deacon during World War I there was pressure to plant war gardens and grow your own vegetables. My deacons quorum under John D. Giles obtained permission from Frank R. Snow to plant potatoes in a lot north of his home, on Canyon Road almost to what is now Memory Grove.

We grew some excellent russet and other potatoes there. My brother Ira and I also grew early Ohio potatoes on a plot at the southwest corner of 4th Ave. and Canyon Road.

We loved to go up the canyon (City Creek) and up on Ensign Peak. It was a real treat when either of my parents would hike with us. They would tell us stories. My Father also would tell us about the Gospel and answer questions concerning religion. Sunday afternoons was a favorite time for this.

We also had family prayer around the front room table together every night. I enjoyed particularly the prayers of my Father and Grandmother, who was very fervent.

If we needed to go anywhere around town we caught the street car. But if we wanted to go up the canyon it was a case of "Shank's Mares" (walking) except for the occasional time when my father would rent a rig and a horse or when my Uncle Joseph would drive us in his surrey.

The road up City Creek was narrow and after you got up there several miles frequently the trees would even arch over from both sides hiding the sky. But the picnic spots were a real treat to us. I have hiked that canyon to the divide at Hardscrabble Canyon, a tributary of East Canyon which flows into Weber Canyon.

Until I was scout age there was an asphalt batching plant of P. J. Moran, contractor, north of present Memorial House. The building now occupied by Memorial House was the City shops. Dump wagons would carry gravel from pits in the area to the plant where the asphalt was mixed. The dump wagons in turn would carry this down Canyon Road to where the asphalt was needed.

When I still was attending Lafayette School, a concrete conduit about five feet inside diameter was laid and City Creek was diverted into this at a dam just east of present Memorial House. The stream went underground southwesterly to North Temple and Main St. from where it flowed through an open channel west on North Temple almost to the viaduct across the railroad tracks at 3rd West. A beautiful park was planted on soil laid atop the cobblestones and gravel which covered the buried stream along Canyon Road.

The State Capitol was built atop the hill west of Memorial House, being completed in 1914. Earth from leveling the Capitol area was pushed off the edge of the canyon, destroying the original vegetation. Earth also was pushed off the crest of the east canyon hill northward from 5th Ave. obliterating the old Big Ditch channel. Fortunately the Memory Park project sponsored by the Service Star Legion later restored beauty to the canyon mouth.

Clarence (left) with Ira (right)

Returning to our home. Although it had a hot air furnace this was so inefficient that my folks used the kitchen coal range and small hot blast heating stoves in the front room and parlor for heating. Ira and I had the job of keeping the kindling box stocked and the coal scuttles full.

The north room in the basement had a table piled with 50 pound bags of flour each fall. Beneath the north window was a big box which was filled each fall with potatoes. Boxes of apples also were stored. Mother baked bread raised by yeast which she grew in a fruit jar of potato water.

Zina Y. Card, a daughter of Brigham Young, lived in an adobe brick home across the street beneath huge black walnut trees. A wall of rocks and mortar which once surrounded the B. Young property extended up Fourth Avenue to “A” Street.

We attended the Eighteenth Ward, which during that period led the Church in amount of tithing collected, achievements and activities. Under Bishop Thomas A. Clawson this ward was a leader. He was brother to Elder Rudger Clawson, member of the Council of the Twelve; Elder Orson F. Whitney, member of the Council of the Twelve was former bishop of the ward and lived across the street from my parents' home. President Joseph F. Smith was a member of the Ward. Horace G. Whitney, general manager of the Deseret News, conducted the ward choir for 20 years until his death in 1920.

As a result we had a rich variety of General Authorities and other top speakers addressing our sacrament meetings. I counted it a real pleasure to attend these meetings.

The first individual sacrament cups were used in this ward June 18, 1911 after the General Authorities had authorized this as an experiment suggested by Seldon Clawson. Prior to that time large silver goblets were used.

As a boy I had attended Sunday School and Primary in the old district school building at 2nd Ave. and A St. This was torn down and while the new building was under construction (completed in 1908) we attended Sunday School, Primary, and Religion Class at Barratt Hall and in the LDS High School buildings north of the Hotel Utah.

Bishop Clawson wore a shortcropped white beard at the time and I looked at him on the stand in Barratt Hall and wondered why he had not wiped off what appeared to me to be shaving lather. If we attended Religion Class each Thursday afternoon regularly we would be given a ticket admitting us to a free swim once a week at the Deseret Gymnasium just east of Hotel Utah. We attended.

My brother Alma obtained a route to carry the Deseret News in our area. Both Ira and I followed in his footsteps. Ira and I also became copy boys carrying copy from the City and County Bldg. and Capitol by bicycle to the News editorial office. All three brothers also worked in the mailing room. It was a natural that I should step into news reporting.

I became somewhat of a "book worm" and became short sighted which prevented my becoming proficient playing baseball.

After attending the Lafayette School I attended the old LDS High School. One of the Tithing Office buildings which during my early childhood had been operated to receive and to sell farm products housed the biology classroom and woodwork shops of the school. Girls studied domestic science and cooking at the Lion House. Teachers at this school in the main were dedicated and competent. Among outstanding teachers were John Henry Evans, author of One Hundred Years of Mormonism and Joseph Smith the American Prophet, my senior English teacher; Heber Green Richards, my Ancient History teacher, and Frank K. Seegmiler, senior theology teacher, and I. Owen Horsfall math teacher. Brother Richards at that time suggested that I would make a good newspaper reporter.

From the 8th grade on I paid for my own clothes and most of my other expenses exclusive of food and shelter.

After graduating from LDS High School in 1921, I attended the University of Utah. I detested ROTC and dropped this after the first year. I enjoyed greatly English composition and literature and worked two years on the Utah Chronicle becoming news editor the second year. I joined a social fraternity, Phi Pi Phi, in my junior year and was a member of Signa Upsilon, literary fraternity, the French Circle and Education Club. But I was not too much of a social person and did not attend many dances until my senior year. I also played tennis and swam.

Some of the instructors and some students at the University of Utah were hostile to our Church . They derided BYU when it instituted football about 1923. As a result, I cheered for the Y from that time on.

My Father had bought a Model T Ford touring car the spring of 1921. I soon learned to drive. This became my chariot for dates after that time, although the car had no heater and the streets were not cleared by the city in winter, so the car was put up after heavy snows and not taken out until early spring.

I was determined to get a job as a newspaper reporter, but since I was unable to find this for several years, I worked as a service station attendant earning 40 cents an hour. My father had died of a brain tumor November 12, 1921 and my grandmother Sharp died in 1924, at age 88, leaving only Mother and my sister Lucile at home with me.

I finally was able to work my way in as a full time copy boy at the Deseret News beginning in the late fall of 1928 at $15.00 a week. I was writing obits and doing general assignments when I was called to fill a mission in South Africa.

Clarence with Elders Thomas Y. Wilson, Pres. Don Mack Dalton, Elder George Maus.

I entered the Missionary Home which was on State Street north of the Beehive House in April 1929 and after nearly a week's strenuous training left by Western Pacific train for San Francisco and then to South Africa. [Clarence’s journal writings of his mission and travels are at the end of this history.]

After completing my mission by using my savings I traveled by small Italian ship to Istanbul, Athens, and Venice. Next came Switzerland, Germany, France, England, and Scotland. I embarked at Southampton, England, crossing the Atlantic [June 1932] in the U.S. Lines "President Roosevelt." I was met by my Mother and Lucile. We took delivery on a Ford Model B, two-door and had a wonderful time driving to Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Independence, Mo., on the way. The Reorganized Church was building its huge auditorium which looked very crude and a thorough mess.

We drove through Rocky Mountain National Park and arrived in Salt Lake City, July 12, 1932 after going through muddy roads east of Vernal.

It was wonderful to see the green valley and to be with my folks again. We called on my Uncle Joseph Sharp who had paid nearly half my missionary expenses, my brother Fred and his family; William H. Westwood, whose wife, my sister Gladys, had died during my absence, and others.

The economic depression was in full swing and it was very difficult finding any work. The Deseret News, my former employer, in the persons of Joseph J. Cannon, editor, and James M. Kirkham, manager, said they had no vacancies in sight.

On the morning of July 14 the father and sister of Elder Clare B. Christensen called at 145 4th Ave. I was impressed by Bernard N. Christensen, the father, but fascinated by his daughter, Maurine. I could tell that she had lots of energy, joy of life, and good breeding. She looked healthy and she was beautiful, in short, the person I wanted for my wife. This decision occurred in a matter of minutes; they invited me to come down to American Fork in several days. I accepted.

I spoke in my ward, the 18th, the next Sunday, enjoying this experience much and being rushed by many good looking girls in the ward. I was corralled to teach a teen age Sunday School class and sang for a while in the ward choir under Joseph Prows.

I enjoyed very much my first visit to the Christensen home in American Fork and liked the mother, Maud Driggs Christensen, immediately. She was always gracious, stimulating and helpful. Paul, Kathryn and Owen, along with Clare, were enthusiastic and good company.

Maurine has told you of my visits there and our outings up American Fork Canyon. We also went hunting rabbits and cutting cedar posts over at Cedar Valley. Each time I would help with the farm work and try to pull my own weight, but I was most interested in Maurine.

She soon was wearing my fraternity badge. My folks were shocked to

hear this, because I had not confided in them, considering that they could read between the lines.

At October General Conference they had counted on being asked to the South African Missionary reunion, having attended this in my absence. I did not realize this and took my girl, Maurine. I was made chairman of the committee for the next reunion and had Clare sing, accompanied by his brother Paul.

Early in January I won employment with the Salt Lake Tribune at the salary of $20 a week. I had been getting $15 a week as copy boy at the News before leaving for South Africa. My first assignment was covering the State Farm Bureau annual convention in the Newhouse Hotel. O. N. Malmquist was the city editor who hired me. We had known each other attending a class in logic at the U. of U. Florence Ray, who then was a freshman, later had been married to "Quist" as he was known. I had done a little work for the Tribune visiting voting places and arranging for the election judges to phone the results to the Tribune office.

I worked about 12 hours a day minimum and six days a week. After the Farm Bureau convention was over they gradually had me work more and more. I worked hard and conscientiously and they appreciated this. Finally my ten to fourteen hour work days ended after President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the eight hour work day and the forty hour week. Extra hours were worked in some cases where we earned “overtime” pay.

My dear Mother contracted phlebitis soon after and died May 12, 1933, at the age of 69. This was a great loss to me, but I am sure she wanted to be with her husband who was loved deeply by all of us. I had helped tend her during her illness, but did not realize the end was so near.

Soon I was working night rewrite (assistant to the city editor) each Tuesday night until 2 a.m., night police each Wednesday night, and covering the north run which included the Church offices, Hotel Utah and many other offices the other four days.

That was my schedule when we were married. As Maurine has told you in her story, she had asked Elder David O. McKay to perform our ceremony. I confirmed this with Brother McKay, who also was a favorite with me. Soon after, President Heber J. Grant, who had brought my father to Salt Lake and who had performed the marriage ceremony for my brother Fred and his wife, told me that he had heard that I was going to be married and he would be happy to perform the ceremony. I had to tell him thanks very much, but we had already asked Brother McKay. Also soon after that Brother George Albert Smith, (who succeeded President Grant as president) also offered to perform the ceremony, and was told the same with thanks much.

The ceremony itself took place on November 14, 1933 and was a wonderful experience. Brother McKay recited nearly all of I Corinthians 13, beginning, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity," but instead of charity, he said, that word meant love. He counseled us to always have that same love for each other. I was almost walking on air after hearing him!"

As Maurine has told you in her story we lived in the Yale Apartments at 144 2nd Ave. and were comfortable but a little warm in the summer time. So we moved to 160 D St. for a home which was to cost us $5,800, with two bedrooms and a basement with hot water heat. We bought a Ford V8 in 1935 and used to drive to Maurine’s parents’ home about every third Sunday after I had completed work at the Tribune. She would do our accumulated washing and I helped with the milking and farm work.

160 D Street Home

After working as Boy Scout editor one day a week, I made a trip to the Boy Scout Jamboree in Washington, D. C. in the summer of 1950. I was called upon by President J. Reuben Clark Jr. to speak in the Manhattan Ward. I had also spoken to the group, I believe, at the Sacred Grove. We witnessed, I believe, the first production of the Hill Cumorah pageant. I assure you that this, with very little music, was hardly recognizable as the antecedent of the present elaborate presentation.

Soon after I was assigned to the North run five days a week. By the way at about the time of the bank holiday when all banks were closed for almost a week, all Tribune employees were given a wage cut and my salary at my marriage was only $18 a week for six days and many, many long hours.

One of the most interesting portions of this run for me was the Church offices. On many occasions I actually scooped the Deseret News, owned by the Church. The photographs which I helped arrange, far outdid the Deseret News.

Malmquist had been requested by Gus P. Backman, publicity chairman for the State Centennial Commission, to write a short pamphlet on the history of the state and the church for the 1947 Centennial. Malmquist demurred and suggested that Backman ask me. He did and I wrote the booklet which drew a letter of commendation from President David O. McKay, Centennial Commission chairman.

During this period President McKay became friendly with John F. Fitzpatrick, a Catholic and former secretary to Sen. Thomas Kearns, who had bought the Tribune to help boost his candidacy for the Senate. Fitzpatrick became publisher of the Tribune after Kearns' death, and was a member of the Centennial Commission. Fitzpatrirk whose wife's mother, I believe, had been a Mormon, was friendly to our Church. He and the late President Anthony K. Ivins were very good friends and Fitzpatrick had spoken at the Ivins' funeral in the Tabernacle.

Fitzpatrick on one occasion had told me that no one could be more petty and jealous than a minister of the church including the Catholic Church in particular. I was writing Catholic news for the Tribune at the time.

At any rate, soon after that, the News and the Tribune got together and organized the Newspaper Agency Corp. which provided all mechanical equipment including presses and engraving equipment and handled all advertising and circulation for both papers. This saved both papers millions of dollars. The News bought out the old Salt Lake Telegram then operated by the Tribune, and both papers used the Sunday S. L. Tribune.

This was a far cry from the days when the Tribune crusaded violently against our Church and particularly plural marriage. An echo of the latter feeling was evident when I was with the Tribune. Father Dwyer, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake, and editor of the Intermountain Catholic newspaper, ran a column entitled the Intermountain Day Book in his paper. He complained about the hard seats in the Tabernacle where he had listened to a concert by the Utah Symphony. Dwyer also had made some slurring remarks about the architecture of the Temple and Tabernacle in his column.

President J. Reuben Clark took him up immediately and said that the Tabernacle had been built by a different breed of people than that to which Dwyer belonged. To which Dwyer replied with venom. And President Clark replied in kind. Clark’s remarks were prominent in the News.

Finally Noble Warren, who had been a member of Utah’s Constitutional Convention and then was editorial writer for the Tribune, wrote and editorial quoting from the Old Testament saying that it was time to end the bickering. And this ended it. Warrum and his wife were very good friends of President George Albert Smith, but were not Mormons.

Shortly after hearing feelers, I decided to leave the Tribune and rejoin the News. Fitzpatrick had been heard to say that he would wreck the News if they tried to take me from them. I went to see Fitzpatrick and told him I was planning on going back to the New. He took it gentlemanly.

I thought President McKay, then a counselor to President George Albert Smith, knew all about what was going on. But he did not hear until it came from his secretary. I apologized to President McKay for whom I had and have the highest regard.

Before leaving the Tribune I, with Maurine and Miriam and Paul, had covered the Centennial Trek of the Sons of Utah Pioneers in 1947 from Nauvoo to Salt Lake. I also wrote the pamphlet entitled This is the Place: Utah Centennial, 1847-1947, published by the Centennial Commission.

After going back to the News, with Maurine I covered the Church History Tour by bus back to Whitingham, Vermont, and the dedication of the Brigham Young statue in the National Capitol. This was sponsored by the Improvement Era with John D. Giles in charge. We took pictures and wrote some interesting stories on the numerous historic spots visited.

My wife and I also have made three trips to Palmyra covering the Hill Cumorah pageant for the News. On each of these trips we visited briefly with our missionary sons Paul Ellis and David McKay, who served in the Eastern States and Cumorah Missions and both of whom were on the pageant staff.

I worked for several months on the Church News under Henry A. Smith, but then went onto the copy desk working at times as news editor for the Sunday paper. Then I was acting partially in charge of the Church News for a few months then went to the City and County Building as reporter. From there I went up to the Capitol in 1952 and covered it until my retirement in December 1972.

Clarence S. Barker, news reporter

Governor Calvin L. Rampton gave a luncheon in the Hotel Utah surprising me, and presented me with a replica in a frame of the state seal, "from the people of Utah." William B. Smart, publisher of the News, presented me with a beautiful watch. Both Rampton and Smart praised me highly. The president of Sigma Delta Chi, journalism fraternity, presented me with a plaque bearing a replica of the front page of the News published the day I was born and a replica of the front page shortly before my retirement.

Paul Ellis flew up from Los Angeles to Salt Lake to attend, Maurine and David McKay flew up from Phoenix, and Miriam flew from Washington, D.C., to attend. Was I surprised.

A year previously Rampton also had engineered the award of a $25 U.S. Savings Bond to me as the monthly Courtesy Is Contagious Award to a state employee. Rampton on that occasion said that although I was not a state employee, I had been intimately associated with them and had set an example.

Turning to the Church side, in the 20th Ward while we were living at 160 D St. I was made secretary, then a president of the 13th Quorum of Seventies which had been organized in Nauvoo, Illinois. Both my father and my Uncle Joseph Sharp had also held that position.

When we moved back into the North 18th Ward, I was made a president of the 124th Quorum of Seventies, became senior president and about 12 years before ordained a high priest. I was made assistant to Cornelius Vander Linden, group leader, and then assistant to Harold McFarland, group leader and also served as group class instructor. Next I taught the Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class for about four years, when I was released to become group instructor again for the high priests. From that I was made counselor in the ward Sunday School presidency under W. Harper Stoneman. I left that position to go to Phoenix.

In Phoenix I first was assistant ward clerk in the Second Ward, Phoenix North Stake, and since moving to Tempe, have been family teaching supervisor, high priests* group secretary and assistant to the group leader.

Shortly after coming to Arizona I became staff correspondent for the Church News and covered major stories in the Phoenix and Mesa area. I had many interesting contacts through the Church News and enjoyed writing the stories.

During the period I have been there President Kimball addressed a huge meeting in the Activities Center at Arizona State University; rededicated the Mesa Temple, installed a new Temple presidency, and addressed other functions

I have always had a strong testimony of the truth of the Gospel and that His Church and leaders are divinely directed.

My family and my home have always stood highest with me. My dear wife Maurine, and all our sons and daughters and grandchildren, and our sons-in-law and daughters-in-law are wonderful people who are a delight to us both.

Clarence and Maurine returned to Salt Lake City where both finished there sojourn on earth with Maurine dying June 30, 1982. I married Ella Anderson Gardner, a 65 year old widow, June 27, 1985. [This marriage ended in divorce.]

Clarence died on December 3, 1996 and is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Headstone in the Salt Lake City Cemetery

A remembrance of Clarence by one of his granddaughters Deborah Rice is the following story: “When my grandfather was a baby, he was quite big. People often guessed that he was a year or more older than he really was. His mother thought it would be helpful if she taught him to tell people his age. She spent days trying to get him to say “one.” After giving up on that, she decided that at least she could teach him to hold up one finger. My grandfather liked that idea and soon, when people would ask him how old he was, he would hold up one finger. This finger happened to be his little finger. His mother could not figure out why he held up that one when all the time she had been holding up her pointer finger. On my grandfather’s second birthday, my great-grandmother realized she was going to need to teach him “two,” but, for some reason my grandfather didn’t want to give up being as old as his little finger. It took him until he was three to hold up two fingers, even though he still preferred holding up his little finger. As a father, my grandfather was continually pestered by his children to tell them his age. Every time they asked he would reply, ‘I’m as old as my little finger.’ This became a family aphorism whenever anyone was asked his/her age.”

Compiled and edited by Ruth H. Barker, a daughter-in-law

Source: Original document written by Clarence S. Barker in the possession of David McKay Barker, a son.

Another original document written by Clarence S. Barker in the possession of Paul Ellis Barker, a son.