Addison Clark Gone Home
As these words are written, the heart of a great brotherhood, already stunned by the tiding of irreparable loss, is sadly awakening to the raization [sic] that the earthly labors of Addison Clark are ended. On Saturday* morning, May 11*, at twenty minutes past one o'clock, the great leader quietly passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lyman Russell, at Comanche, Texas. After the announcement some two months since of his serious and probably fatal illness, the public was not altogether unprepared for his death. He had, however, rallied sufficiently to be up about the house for a few days, and the family and intimate friends had begun to hope that he might even yet, with his iron constitution, conquer the disease which had fastened upon him. He himself was hopeful that an operation might resotre him to his usual health, as soon as he could gain the necessary strength to undergo it. About ten days before his death he again began to fail, and was soon confined to his bed. Though he had expressed himself earlier as being willing to go if "his work was done," he remained hopeful to the very last. He feared only that if he could not recover he might linger to need the care of others - so characteristic a feeling in one who never in his life had wanted anyone to be put to the least inconvenience on his account!
Friday afternoon he seemed to be in splendid spirits, and his faculties were never clearer. His daughter had been reading to him at intervals through the day articles from various magazines and journals. That afternoon he asked us to read a contribution to the current "Outlook" on "The New Bible," and discussed with keen and unflagging interest the great questions which were near to his heart. He seemed to be as one preparing by study and reflection for a great life work. His only reference to death was the direction given to his brother, Randolph Clark, as to funeral services in the event of the unexpected failure of the operation which he still believed could be performed within a few days. As his immediate attendants then left him for a little while he himself read with care and eagerness the daily paper which had just come. Life was never more full of meaning to him than at that moment.
About nightfall he was seized with a hemorrhage from the bowels and soon began to grow weaker. His physician administered an injection of morphine, and about 9 o'clock the self-forgetful patient turned to his family and said: "Don't sit up here with me. Lie down and rest, for you need it and I'm going to sleep." He soon had given himself to slumber - the last of earth. His waking was with his loved and lost "where they shall run and not grow weary, and shall walk and not faint."
Funeral services were held in the little chapel at Granbury on Sunday the 14th, at 10 a.m. It was Bro. Clark's request of many years standing that if he should be taken first, Bro. J.C. Mason should conduct the service, which he did in a spirit worthy of its great subject. Bro. H.M. Bandy, one of the early Add-Ran students and Bro. V.R. Stapp, pastor of the Granbury church, which had so long and faithfully loved Bro. Addison, assisted in the service. At 1 p.m. under the leafy bowers of the cemetery at Thorp Spring, while the tender songs of the Thorp Spring College choir fell upon the air, we sadly laid by the side of his beloved wife the honored form of Addison Clark, and turned away to face a world from which his leadership was gone.
Addison Clark was born near Dangerfield in Titus (now Morris) County, Texas, December 11, 1842. As a barefoot boy of twelve he made the good confession of Palestine, under the ministry of Carroll Kendrick. In 1857 the family removed to Midway, in Madison County, and in 1859 returned to North Texas. Here, near the old town of Farmington, in 1861, the young man enlisted in the Confederate army, in a company almost entirely made up of his comrades who belonged to the Christian church. This company saw service in the Trans-Mississippi department, under Gens. Walker and Kirby Smith.
During the war, his courage and marked ability were often in evidence. A second lieutenant, he was frequently called upon to act as first lieutenant, and was detailed by his commanding general himself to perform duties to which men of superior rank would have naturally been entitled. It was characteristic that when the quarter master guard which he commanded fell to the rear, he insisted on going to the front "with the boys," where service and danger were.
In 1866 he entered school at Kentuckytown, under "Uncle Charley" Carlton, removing with the institution to Bonham. After two years he became teacher as well as student. The unpretentious college was like a Greek academy so far as method and courses of study were concerned, and Addison Clark never stopped ___ the instruction that any or all of his teachers could impart. He pushed on into advanced Latin and higher mathematics, and threaded the devious ways of Hebrew by himself.
In 1869 he was married to Miss Sallie McQuigg, at Bonham. He had begun to preach about a year earlier, and, having an appointment on his wedding day, was married in the church and immediately went into the pulpit and preached as though nothing had happened.
During this year he removed to Fort Worth, where with his brother Randolph, he opened a private school near the stie of the present union depot. In 1873 Randolph Clark began a similar work in the old "Academy" building at Thorp Spring, in Hood County, and in 1874 wrote his brother in Fort Worth a letter styled "From Add-Ran College" - the first use of a name chosen in honor of his Brother Addison's first born, a son who died when three and one-half years old. In this year, 1874, Addison Clark himself removed to the new site and a charter was secured under the foregoing title, though Addison preferred the term "Academy" as not being so pretentious. "College" was chosen, however, so he determined to employ teachers of collegiate strength. To do this, it became necessary for the brothers to raise funds by selling lands for $4,000 that are today worth perhaps as many millions.
With the session of 1899-1900 he closed his services as president of Add-Ran. Under his administration the school had passed under church supervision, had been rechartered as "Add-Ran Christian University," and had won a reputation in both State and National circles of education.
His later career as pastor at Waco, and Amarillo, his two years' presidency of Add-Ran-Jarvis College at Thorp Spring, his ministry to the churches at Comanche, Stephenville and Granbury, can not be more than outlined here. His last pastorate was at Mineral Wells, where in anguish of body known to none but himself he resolutely continued his labor of love till the disease whose nature and power baffled the knowledge and skill of his physicians compelled him to listen to the importunities of his relatives and friends. With supreme resignation and sublime courage he began a battle for life in which death has seemed to conquer did we not know that "To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die."
* The day & date recorded in the article are incorrect. Randolph penciled in the correct date/day on his copy of the article = May 12, Friday
Source: The Christian Courier ... Volume XXIV … Dallas, Texas … Thursday, May 18, 1911 … Number 19
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