Orson Clark-12/14/81 - Pg 6

profit.

Interviewer: You could earn more money if you had invested it in something else?

Orson Clark: Yes, but during that time, they had accumulated enough surplus and undivided profits that each of those amounted to about a million dollars. Uncle Amasa when he was in there, it was his ambition to save enough money to have a million dollar surplus. It was soon after he died that they had it. I think it was then when they commenced to pay a little higher dividends.

Interviewer: Do the Clarks still have the majority interest in the bank?

Orson Clark: I don't know. There was one of Grant's sons. I don't know whether you knew Grant. Grant was the son of A.L. and he worked in the bank, he was a cahier in the bank along with his father. He had one son. This son has been kind of a money grabber. One of the daughters married one of the fellows and he's along with him, partnered with him. They made quite a drive here awhile ago to get all the stock they could.

Ruth Knowlton: They were buying up stock from various members of the family?

Orson Clark: That's what they were trying to do. Of course they knew who had the stock, they could get that information from the bank. They were trying to buy this stock. There was a kind of a nasty problem that came up, I won't tell you about it. Anyway, these people got quite a number of the shares. They have gone out in building, they've gone into some of this big building in Salt Lake. But as I could see, when Ezra went into the bank (that's young Ezra) apparently he was a good manager. My brother Rulon was on the board. he said, "Ezra really knows how to make money." Now Dale, the son of Amasa, was in there first. From what they say, he didn't do too good of a job. He let the money out without getting it back. But Ezra, when he went in, they said he really went after it and made money. What I understood, I haven't looked at their statement in the last year or two, but it seemed to me they had about a million dollars undivided profits. The bank has always been in a good financial condition. During the depression times when so many banks went broke and the like, there were many of them if you remember.

Ruth Knowlton: My parents in Salt Lake got caught in one small bank going broke, closing it's doors.

Orson Clark: Well, while some of those banks were doing that, Uncle A.L. was keeping things going. The bank was classed as one of the Gold Medal banks. In those days that was a way of advertising when they were Gold Medal. This bank was one of those