Doris Catharine Clark

Posted

(Dec. 30, 1912 - Aug. 27, 2010)Doris Clark, a long-time resident of the Powell Valley, died Friday, Aug. 27 while residing at the Powell Valley Care Center. She was 97.

She was born Doris Catharine Krell on Dec. 30, 1912, in Pueblo, Colo., daughter of Wilber Leland Krell (1885-1966) and Mary Blanche (Crossman) Krell (1887-1970). An early day resident of the Powell community, Doris came to the Shoshone Valley the summer after she was born. She accompanied her mother; her twin sister, Dorothy Barbara; her brother, Wilber, Jr.; and her grandmother, Barbara Krell.

Her father, who was already in Powell, had accepted work on the Shoshone Reclamation Project in the operations and maintenance office. He had assumed his duties on April 1, 1913. Mr. Krell eventually went into a downtown business, the Heart Mountain Hardware. The family remained in Powell until the early 1920s. At that time, they moved to the West Coast where Mr. Krell became administrator of the Mills Memorial Hospital in San Mateo, Calif., for many years.

Doris graduated from San Mateo High School and enrolled at the small junior college there. She then married a young man from Wyoming from her former town of Powell on March 19, 1932, and they returned to Wyoming. Her husband, Wynne Clark, had just earned a degree from the University of Wyoming in 1931 where he majored in agronomy. He was a champion wrestler at the university and captain of the wrestling team.

After college, Wynne began wrestling competition for the U.S. Olympic team in San Francisco, Calif. It was there he renewed his acquaintance with the Krells. Mr. Krell, who had played football at Simpson College in Iowa, assisted Wynne's high school football coach, Les Crawford, with the team when he was in Powell.

During hard times and at the urging of Wynne's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Perry Clark, Wynne gave up his hopes of competing in the Olympics and agreed to return to farm the home place. It was a time of deep depression, and the Clarks were finding the farm hard to operate and experienced help hard to come by. The doctor was a practicing physician and had his own business and patients to care for.

Wynne took over the operation of the family farm and supplemented their income by renting other farmland. After a few years, the Clarks converted their operations to ranching, and with the purchase of rangeland on Polecat Bench, they began a full-time sheep operation. Until Wynne retired in 1979, they took care of some 1,000 commercial ewes, as well as their purebred Suffolk flock.

After helping at the ranch for a number of years and raising her family, Doris had the opportunity to start a career of her own.

She began work at the Powell Tribune in August of 1959. Their daughter, Barbara (Clark) McKinley was already married, and their son, Wilber, was in college at Colorado State University studying veterinary medicine.

When Doris began her work at the Tribune, there were just four people in the front office. They included the owner-publisher, the news editor, the bookkeeper, and Doris, who wrote the family and personal news. She also edited the work of the Tribune's extensive network of country correspondents.

It was also Doris' duty to take care of the circulation department, changing addresses as needed and helping bill subscriptions. She maintained a card file of subscribers and updated paper stencil and metal address plates by hand until circulation was converted to computers.

Doris continued as the Tribune's family editor for some 40 years. She wrote a personal column, Noting What's New, on the family pages for many years and was awarded numerous Wyoming Press Association Pacemaker Awards for her Family Album stories and features. She was a member of Wyoming Press Women and won a third place award nationally for her family pages.

On Jan. 29, 1999, she was honored at a staff retirement party hosted by her friend and colleague, Margaret Look.

Following her retirement, Doris wrote a memoir booklet about her husband, titled “Wynne Clark, His Life and Times,” and one of her life and family activities, “My Return to the Powell Valley.”

Doris was a member of the Union Presbyterian Church for many years, the North End Club and Chapter P of PEO Sisterhood.

Doris was preceded in death by her husband, Samuel Wynne Clark (1905-1987); her sister, Dorothy Barbara (Krell) Rowe (1912-1993) and Dorothy's husband, Robert Rowe; her brother, Wilber L. Krell Jr. (1908-1985), his first wife of eight years, Marian E. (Clark) Krell (1906-1940) and then a later marriage to Marguerite (Mullen) Krell (1908-1994); and Wilber Jr.'s daughter, Nina Anne (Krell) Ingram (1939- 2005).

Doris is survived by a daughter, Barbara (Clark) McKinley and husband Stuart of Daniel; grandson John Clark McKinley (Kathy) and great-grandchildren, Jesse, Elizabeth and Laura McKinley; granddaughter Carol Lynn (McKinley) Atkins (Karl) and great-grandchildren Ian and Peter (Kristi).

She is also survived by her son, Wilber Clark and wife Sue of Helena, Mont., and their children, Gina Lee (Clark) Ridder (Tim) and Perry John Clark (Toni). Great-grandchildren from the Ridder family are Jared, Connor and Darian and from the Clark family are Alexis and Danielle.

Nieces and nephews and their families still living include Robert E. Rowe (Beth) and John S. Rowe (Ruth) of Santa Barbara, Calif.; a niece, Donna (Krell) Rhodes (Russ) of The Dalles, Ore.; and nephew-in-law, Paul Ingram, and the children of Paul and Nina (Krell) Ingram (deceased) of Sweet Home, Ore.; and nephew Leland Wynne Krell (Geri) of Carthage, Mo.

Funeral services will be conducted Thursday, Sept. 2 at 11 a.m. at the Presbyterian Church in Powell. Interment will follow in Crown Hill Cemetery.

For those who wish, the family would graciously appreciate contributions to the Wynne and Doris Clark Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Northwest College Foundation, 231 West Sixth St., Powell, WY 82435.

Comments