52
In the ensuing months, the vigorous widower adjusted to the solitude of having few or none of his tribe at home, nor the bride who raised them. He began his twenty-three years without Millie by traveling to Chicago.
"During his visit to our home in 1933, after the death of Pamelia, he staved off a broken spirit by busying himself with all sorts of household chores. He repaired my sewing machine, among other things. He could repair almost anything on house or farm.
"During that same visit, he took over the feeding of our Beverly, who was then two and one-half and hard to manage. One day she wanted to throw her breakfast onto the floor and, spoonful by spoonful, he sat watching her do it. Next meal, watching him, she started again, but at a little word she stopped and ate normally."
- Ruby Dorius Clark Rhodes (Lewis), 1961.
"He lived a life that could be photographed. In 1936, when he went with Royal, Russell, LeGrand, and their families to Yellowstone Park, the entire party came to a wire fence. All ducked under the fence except for Grandpa. He pressed the top wire down and stepped over it. The gesture befitted his stature for the moment and for always."
- Ruby Dorius Clark Rhodes Lewis, 1961.
[Is there anything else we could add about W. W. Clark in those lonely years, to fill this page -- maybe a photo of him with his family at Yellowstone Park -- before we resume JRC writing about second wife Pernecy on the next page? Maybe choose a vignette from around page 60?]
[Or Show video clips via QR Code.]
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53
--- The Second Mrs. W. W. Clark ---
Wilford Clark remarried fifteen months after the death of Pamelia. On January 23, 1935, in the Salt Lake Temple, Pernecy May Bagley was sealed to her ex-bishop and long-time family friend. The new but aging couple settled on Springdale Farm for the remaining seven years of her life.
As a youngster, "Necey" had been described by a childhood chum as follows:
"Pernecy and I were neighbors, our houses separated only by a creek. Her family was poor but respectable in the community. We went through the log cabin school together, and I was a few days older than she was. She was crazy about my brother, Alfred (Lundberg), when we were thirteen, but I do not recall her having any boyfriends. I guess it was because she was rather fat. You know, fat figure and pretty face. I stayed with the Bagley family for a month when I was sixteen, and Necey used to ask me to help do all her housework. She was young and carefree like I was. That was the last I saw of her. We used to write after I moved to Farmington. She went on to become a nurse at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City and, many years later, married Wilford Clark. I never knew him."
- Emma Lundberg Anderson, 1963.
While she lived on Springdale Farm, Aunt Necey's health failed, but she lived long enough to become adored by the young boys of Georgetown who came to use Springdale's spring-water swimming hole. Almost always, she baked biscuits or hot bread and had it buttered and waiting for the youngsters when they were dried and dressed after their freezing swim on summer days.
Her seven years' companionship with Wilford, short-lived though it was, provided at least a pleasant memory for those descendants who never knew the first Grandmother Clark. The death of Aunt Necey, as she was known, began the final chapter in the life of Wilford Woodruff Clark: that of Stake Patriarch, a missionary for the Church, enthusiastic traveler and temple worker, and symbol of the gospel in action to Clark and non-Clark alike.