MY FATHER, HYRUM D. CLARK 

by Owen Morrell Clark 

When I was just a boy, my Mother told me that when my brother, Hyrum T. was just a boy, one day while he was with Father and was riding on a load of logs, as I recall, he fell off and a wheel of the wagon ran over him. Father naturally was in dismay. Hyrum T. could only whisper, but asked Father to administer to him, which he did. Hyrum T. got up, got on the wagon, and they drove home. 

I was about ten years old and was with Father on our way from Star Valley to Farmington. We stopped at Bear Lake and Father took me for a boat ride on the lake. I thought that was great. 

It was shortly after Christmas, I was about ten. Father took me with him on a load of hay to sell it in Salt Lake City. While there he purchased an excellent hand sled. It had the name Western on the middle top board. I asked him whose sled? "I guess you can have it," was about his reply. "Why, that's just like the DREADNOUGHT," I think I exclaimed. I cherished that sled and had it for many years. 

I was along in my teens. One day in late spring Father and I were driving some cattle up Farmington canyon for summer grazing. Father rode slowly over to Big Creek and said about this: "Yes, it was bout here," and then related to me that as a boy, while herding some sheep in that vicinity, the sheep crossed the stream. Father did not want to get his shoes wet, so he took them off, threw them over the stream, then waded across. But one of the shoes he could not find again. 

As a young man, Father played on a baseball team, and recalled playing against a team that included Heber J. Grant! (Both were born in 1856). 

Some men have wondered at Father's successes and accomplishments; but as they so talked with him, he sometimes asked: "Would you want to follow my trail?"

Father worked very little for others for wages. One day - I suppose it was before he was married - he helped a man with his threshing. After the day's work, he carried home his day's pay, in grain, in a sack over his shoulder. He told me that while he was working, he was also working his head. 

On one occasion, in traveling by train from Montpelier (?), Idaho to Farmington, Utah, Father had to change trains at McCammon (?), Idaho. The station agent there hesitated to accept his check. Father asked him to "wire" the station agent in Farmington, Heber Sessions, and ask if his check was good for a ticket to Farmington. Heber Sessions wired back "Yes, and around the world if he wants it." 

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