Richard "Dick" K Clark

A Memorial Service will be held at 3 p. m. Sunday, January 12, 2014 at Kessler Park United Methodist Church, 1215 Turner Ave. @ Colorado, Dallas, TX 75208. Rev. David Carr and grandson-in-law Rev. Kerry Wood will officiate. A reception will follow. Memorials may be made to Kessler Park United Methodist Church, Boy Scout Troop 5 c/o Kessler Park UMC, or Golden Cross of Methodist Hospital, 122 W. Colorado, Dallas, TX 75208. Richard “Dick” Karl Clark, born Oct. 29, 1916 in West Orange, NJ, started greeting people at Heaven’s gate Nov. 26, 2013. His warm and genuine smile will be sorely missed on this earth, but he is reunited with all those who went before him: his wife of 68 years, Martha; his parents William Wallace and Jane Spurr Clark, five siblings, and numerous friends he made in his 97 years. He attended Lida Hooe Elementary School and graduated from Crozier Tech High School in 1934 where he stayed an extra year to take all the shop classes he could. He attended some classes at SMU. While he didn’t have a college degree, he encouraged his children and grandchildren to get all the education available. He credits Mr. Brown of Bruton and Brown for giving him the freedom in his job to expand and hire as Dick saw the need. He began his own machine shop, Clark Machine & Welding, in 1953 in downtown Dallas. He moved many of those tools to his shop at his home in Oak Cliff when he sold the property to the city for the Convention Center development. In 1960 he formed the partnership Speck & Clark, a record handling systems company, from which he retired in 1991. His interests included his immediate and extended family, golf, travel, games of all kinds but especially bridge, talking with and serving others, and telling jokes. He was a charter member of the Oak Cliff Optimist Club and active for more than fifty years. He was proud to be a 50-year member of the East Dallas Masonic Lodge. He was a faithful member of Kessler Park United Methodist Church since 1950 where he greeted members and visitors for five decades, served as a trustee on numerous committees, repaired anything, supported children’s education and the music ministry, and was a staunch member of the Service Class whose interests included a scholarship committee and Meals on Wheels. He was a resident of Oak Cliff most of his life; he later lived in Grand Prairie with his wife Betty Welch Clark after they married in 2009 and then with her at The Forum at Park Lane. He is survived by his wife Betty; his four children: Barbara Shearer and husband C. M. of Silver Lake, OH, David Clark and Tawnya Kabnick of Morristown, NJ, Kevin Clark and Juanita Samarripa of Flower Mound, Colleen Kelley and husband Ken of Dallas; eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren; a loving second family of Welch children: Jim and Diane Welch of Grand Prairie, Jordan and Jonelta Welch of Arlington, Molly and Charles Kitch of Dallas; and three devoted caregivers.