Raymond G. Clark (1900-1980) and Phyllis Hart Clark (1905-1998)

         Philip H. Clark was born on 23 May 1938, the son of Raymond Gilbert Clark (1900-1980) and his wife Phyllis Angeline Hart (1905-1998). Raymond G. Clark appears to have been an engineer having taken a home study course through the Chicago Technical College, Chicago, Illinois, where he studied mechanics and engineering. During this time Clark was living at 32 Ward Avenue, Northampton, Massachusetts.  This address is that of his parents, toolmaker Gilbert G. Clark (1873-1963) and his wife Lillian Belle Metcalf (d 1955). Raymond later moved to New Britain, Connecticut by 1930, then after having a son in 1938, moved to Glastonbury, Connecticut, near Hartford by 1940. Clark also appears to have studied at Tri-State College of Engineering in the early to mid-1920s, a school in Angola, Indiana, as there are notebooks and engineering drawings in this collection for that school. He also shows up as Business Manager of the Banquet Committee for the 23rd Annual Engineer’s Banquet in 1930 at Tri-State College. He appears in 1940 to be working with Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford, Connecticut in production engineering. This is the same firm that Raymond’s father worked for 17 years. By 1955 Raymond was working as an engineer for Hamilton Standard. Raymond G. Clarke had five brothers: Clifford Clark of Turners Falls Mass.; Robert Clark of Northampton, Mass.; Harold Clark of Glastonbury, Connecticut; Edward Clark of Sedona, Arizona; and Donald Clark of Clarence Center, New York; He also had two sisters Mrs. Charles Putney of Leverett, Massachusetts, and Mrs. Joseph Bean of Northampton, Massachusetts.

      Phyllis Hart Clark, the mother of Philip H. Clark, and wife of Raymond G. Clark, was born in 1905 at Newington Junction, Connecticut. In the 1920 Census she appears as a 14 year old living with her divorced mother Ellen M. Hart (1882-1968), a gate tender for the rail road. Also in the household are Phyllis' sisters: Esther, Lillian and Virginia. The head of the house was Ellen M. Hart's widowed mother, Swedish born Sophie Johnson. Ellen's father, Gustavas Johnson, died sometime between 1910 and 1920. Ellen also had an Aunt Ellen living with her.

      Phyllis was still living at Newington Junction during the years 1922-1930, when Raymond Clark and others were writing to her. She graduated from New Britain High School in 1922, and then began night courses for five years at the Hartford Chapter of the American Institute of Banking, studying the fundamentals of banking, standard banking, negotiable instruments, commercial law and economics of business. While she took these courses, she worked for 11 years (1922-1933) as a stenographer/secretary in various banks (Connecticut River Bank, and, Travelers Bank & Trust Co, both located in Hartford).

      By the time the 1930 Census was taken, Phyllis' mother Ellen remarried to a man by the name of Channcey B. Weir, who worked at a paper mill as a digest operator. She lived in Manchester, Hartford County, Connecticut, with her new husband, and her two daughters, Lillian and Virginia, from her previous marriage. After the death of Weir, Ellen appears to have married a third time to Gustav “Gus” Almorth (1873-1968), a machinist/inventor, who designed and built the astronomical clock to guide Alvin Clark & Sons first telescope with a 40 inch lens. Gus also worked as railroad engineer on the Panama Canal, shuttling fill from the Pacific to the Atlantic end of the canal. Almorth had three patents to his name, including one for combination of shoe and detachable skate. His father worked for Thomas Edison on the phonograph and other inventions. There are 63 letters written by Almorth in this collection.

            In 1932, Phyllis married Raymond G. Clark. In 1934 she was working as secretary for Dr. William F. Frazier, Superintendent of the Connecticut Conference of Congregational and Christian Churches (comparable to a Bishop in the Episcopal Church). Beginning in 1935, she began to work part-time with Trumbull Electric Manufacturing in Plainville. In 1938 her son Philip was born. It would not be until 1947 that Phyllis went back to work (outside the house). She worked as a legal secretary for four years, then in real estate and insurance part-time until about 1955.

             Phyllis led an active life and was committed to many social causes in her community of Glastonbury, Connecticut. She was the president of the Glastonbury (CT) Council of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA). She was a charter member of the Academy PTA organizing in 1945, and High School PTA in 1954.  There is a quantity of material from her association with these organizations in the archive, presumably dating from when her son Philip was still in the local schools in Glastonbury, and before he went off to attend Cornell University.  Phyllis was Glastonbury Council President in 1954-55 and 1955-56. Under her guidance she helped organize the Buttonball PTA in 1955.

Phyllis was a member of the Committee of 30 which was appointed to study the new high school plans. Earlier in 1942, during the war,  Phyllis took a home nursing course, binding up her notes and putting them into her 1937 “child care and training” book, a book she presumably put together upon getting pregnant with her son Philip who was born in 1938. She was also active in Defense and the Red Cross during the war years. Again, a number of items in this collection refer to these years of activity.

Phyllis H. Clark was also the assistant secretary of the Fellowship of the Connecticut Congregational Christian Churches (CCCC) and took an active role with the South Congregational Church of Hartford, CT. There is much ephemeral material related to the C.C.C. C. and South Congregational Church and Mrs. Clark’s involvement in these groups, at a time when there were various controversies stirring about the independence of the various Congregationalist churches.

Besides her work in the PTA and the CCCC, Mrs. Clark was also active in the Glastonbury’s Citizen’s Committee on Education, which was to “provide opportunities for community participation in appropriate activities of the school’s program and to establish a relationship between the school and community in mutual interest areas.” Ephemeral material for this group is in the archive dated from the early 1950s. This group was working for a new high school.

The collection contains material showing that Mrs. Clark was President of the Women’s Club of Glastonbury (CT) at least in 1958-1960. She had been a member since 1940. This group was a chapter of the Connecticut State Federation of Women’s Clubs. There are notebooks of meetings, ephemeral material, etc., documenting her participation in this organization. She was also active in a group in the early 1970s that was fighting a proposal to build a horse racing track in Wethersfield, which according to those against the idea would mean the destruction of hundreds of acres of wetlands and meadows along the lower Connecticut River. There is much ephemera and newspaper clippings concerning this episode in the area’s history. The Women’s Club that she was a member of was against the proposal for a race track. Another effort of Mrs. Clark was as an organizer of the Glastonbury Garden Club in 1947.

Philip Hart Clark (1938-2015)

         Philip H. Clark attended Glastonbury High School where he was his class valedictorian in 1956. Before going to Cornell University, Clark attended the Hart School of Music at the University of Hartford, as a high school student, for piano, music theory, and percussion instruments.

         As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Philip H. Clark studied architecture and was vice-president and secretary of the Cornell Glee Club. Clark held a Raycroft Walsh Scholarship (United Aircraft Corporation) and Gannett Newsboy Scholarship to attend Cornell. It was during this time in 1960-1961, that Clark toured with the Glee Club as the first American university musical organization to visit the Soviet Union. They also visited England, Denmark, and Holland that year and returned to England in 1963. Even before his years at Cornell, Clark was a junior graduate of the Julius Hart School of Music, at the University of Hartford. As an undergraduate he served as the Secretary and Vice-President of the Glee Club.

        After receiving his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Cornell (1961) Philip H. Clark was an officer in the United States Air Force serving from 1961 to 1964 as part of his requirement of being in the AFROTC program at Cornell. During his time in military service he was stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, and was a coordinating project officer for the 821st Civil Engineering Squadron Combat Support Group.  He worked on various airbase master planning, and military construction projects. He was project officer for 3 Capehart Housing projects, Titan 1 and Minuteman 1 missile site construction, various rehabilitations of on-base buildings and facilities. He participated in airbase development planning and programming, including land acquisition. His military duties also included administrative and command responsibilities for a 120 man unit, Squadron Security officer, SAC Courier with clearance of Final Top Secret, and other duties as assigned. Previously, while in the military, he attended the Institute of Technology, AU, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, for a Base Civil Engineer Course.

         After his military service, Clark took a position as architectural draftsman with Morse, Dion & Champio, AIA, architects, in Denver, Colorado, in 1964-1965. In 1965 he worked briefly as an assistant project manager for the Villa Italia Shopping Center in suburban Denver, Colorado a $10 million complex of 80 stores. While in Denver he sang with the Denver Classic Chorale, which sang with the Denver Symphony. Clark left this position to attend graduate school at Cornell University, where he eventually received his master’s degree in regional planning in 1968. When he returned to Cornell he again joined the Glee Club becoming its president for the year 1967-1968. While a graduate student Clark took a position with Planners Collaborative, Urban Planners, in Syracuse, New York, as a planning assistant for the years 1966-1967.

         As a graduate student, Philip H. Clark held a Kellogg Foundation Scholarship, a Mellon Foundation Scholarship, and a New York Scholar Incentive Award. He was one of 43 Cornell University Glee Club members who toured the Far East in the winter and spring of 1966 as part of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Cultural Representations Program.  Clark was a tenor. The tour lasted from 3 February to 28 April 1966 and presented 65 to 70 formal concerts. The Glee Club would travel over 30,000 miles, visiting ten different Asian countries including Ceylon, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Okinawa, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. Besides the concerts they presented an equal number of informal concerts, seminars, symposiums, as well as radio and TV broadcasts.

         The Office of Cultural Representations Program was part of the Cultural Exchange Program that sponsored music, dance, and drama groups, both professional and academic on tours through various parts of the world to promote international understanding and communications. Some of the concerts were performed before heads of state.

         The Glee Club was conducted by Prof. Thomas A. Sokol and included “aspiring doctors, lawyers, scientist, engineers, writers, teachers, and businessmen”. The Club was founded in 1868 as one of the finest university singing groups in the nation. Sokol, only 36 years old, was regarded by the famed symphony conductor Eugene Ormandy, as one of the nation’s five leading choral directors.

          At the time of the tour of the Far East with the Cornell Glee Club, Philip H. Clark was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve eventually working his way up to Captain before being put on the reserve retired list. He also sang with the U.S. Air Force when he spent three years active duty in Rapid City, South Dakota. There he also directed three Air Force talent contests and was selected as command supervisor of the 15th Strategic Air Command talent competition. Earlier in his aviation career he was a member of the Arnold Air Society, a national Air Force Cadet honorary society, and a member of Theta Chi fraternity.

         In 1968, Philip was awarded a master’s degree in regional planning. At this time he accepted a “Project Coordinator” position with the Office of Planning & Design, at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.  While in Philadelphia he also sang with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company (1968-1969).

          By 1969, Philip H. Clark is working for the Division of Planning for Fairfax County, Virginia. He writes his parents around this time upon watching Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. He pens a poem for this historic occasion and writes to his parents, sending them a copy of his poem.

         Clark’s first position with Fairfax County was associate planner, moving up to senior planner within a couple of years. Here he was involved in all aspects of community planning for a suburban county of Washington, D.C. By 1972 he moved over to Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, an architectural firm in Washington, D.C. Here he worked as an urban planner for 1972-1973. His firm was a large international consultant firm of architects and landscape architects.  Some of the projects he supervised were: Inner Harbor West, Baltimore Maryland; Ft. Lewis Mountain Park, near Roanoke, Virginia; and the Sheraton Park-Shoreham re-development, Washington, D.C.

         In 1973 Clark left Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum to join the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government, Washington, D.C, where he worked from 1973 to 1976 as a project manager.  There he made quality, administration, and production studies of the airport system in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.  He also began guest lecturing at D.C. area universities. In 1976, with the same agency, Clark became the Chief of Air Transportation Planning. He was responsible for all Council of Governments’ policy recommendations relative to airport planning in the Metropolitan D.C. area. While in Washington, D.C., Clark was a member of the Choral Arts Society of Washington starting in 1976 and prior to this, a member of the Paul Hill Chorale, from 1970-1976.

        In 1978 Clark went to work for Gordian Associates, Inc., a subsidiary of Pullman, Inc., who worked primarily in energy/power supply, utilization and management, environmental protection, resources recovery, corporate and governmental policy planning, developing nations planning, and international technical assistance. Clark had been doing some consultation work for them before going to work for them full time.

         Besides singing and urban planning, Clark was interested in hiking, swimming, photography, reading and travel visiting 45 states in America and 26 foreign countries. His personal collection of slides amounted to over 5,000 items, many award winners, with a great many on architectural topics, urban design and planning.

         Most of Clark’s published pieces were work related material, such as a Washington National Airport Noise Analysis (1977); Energy Consumption and the Air Transportation System in Metropolitan Washington (1976); The Future of Washington's Airports (1975); Little Bennett Park: An Economic Feasibility Study (1973) and his dissertation for his master’s degree in regional planning “Hong Kong: A Survey of Residential Development From its Inception to the Present (1968).

         In 1984, Phyllis Clark is found living at Reston, Virginia. She appears to be a widow at this point and was perhaps living with her son, as there are letters showing she is paying for a companion to stay with her when her son is away on business or for his hobbies. Philip Hart Clark never married, rather he enjoyed writing poetry and singing in Glee Clubs. He worked in the urban and regional planning and design areas.

         On 23 October 1998 at the home of her son Philip, Phyllis Hart Clark passed away. She is stated to have been living with her son since 1983. She was born on 24 July 1905 and was a community leader in Glastonbury (CT) for many years. She joined the Women’s Club of Glastonbury in 1940 and was made an honorary member in 1965. She served as President of the club from 1958-1960 and chaired the very first Glastonbury Apple Festival. She was also active on behalf of the Club in the National Bicentennial Festival in 1976. She was one of the eight founders of “Gardeners of Glastonbury,” later to be known as the Glastonbury Garden Club. She was instrumental in the creation of the kitchen garden at the Wells Shipman Ward House in South Glastonbury. She also belonged to the Glastonbury Historical Society for over 30 years and was honored as “Woman of the Year” in 1973 for her work in the three organizations and became Historian Emeriti of the Women’s Club in 1983. Later she was honored again on the 50th Anniversary of the Women’s Club in 1997. She was survived by her son Philip and two sisters, Ms. Esther B. Hart of Hartford (CT), and Mrs. Lillian H. Schneider of Southern Pines (NC), and 10 nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband of 48 years, Raymond G. Clark who died in 1980. A service was conducted at South Congregational Church in Hartford and was buried at the Village Hill Cemetery in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, with her husband.

         Philip H. Clark died on 22 January 2015 at Fairfax, Virginia. He was very active in the American Planning Association (APA) and served this organization in official capacities. He was also active with understaking and publicizing the development of Reston, Virginia (one of America’s most successful “New Towns” - planned communities). He was survived by several cousins and their spouses: John Calhoun of Higganum, CT, Robert C. Clark of Schenectady NY; Janice C. Jekel of Camp Hill, PA; Eleanor C. Santos of Longmeadow, MA; Linda J. Clark of Glastonbury, CT, and Stephen Clark of Coventry, CT.  Contributions to Phil Clark’s memory were asked to be made to Cornell University, the Sierra Club or the Nature Conservancy.

Esther Hart (d. 2003)

         Esther Barbara Hart, of Hartford, Connecticut, was the sister Phyllis Hart Clark, there are 233 letters of hers in this collection (484 pp.), dated between the years 1922 and 1966. Of this group, 69 of them were written during World War Two (1941-1945) when Esther was serving as an Army Nurse in the South Pacific, and stationed at the 58th Evacuation Hospital, Admiralty Islands, and the 54th General Hospital, Dutch New Guinea. She died on 23 June 2003. She was a public health nurse

Donald R. Clark (1916-1977) and Harold H. Clark (1911-1993)

         Donald R. Clark was the brother of Raymond Clark. He was born 2 July 1911 at Northampton, Massachusetts. The collection has 35 letters (51 pp.) of Donald's to Raymond and Phyllis Clark, dated 1926-1965 He served as a WWII pilot. Of the 35 letters offered here, 26 of them were from his days in the military serving in the European Theater of operations. He attended Army Air Force technical training at Atlantic City, New Jersey, he was then sent to Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to attend further classes. He also spent time at Johnson Air Field, North Carolina, Harris Field, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Malden Army Air Field, in Malden, Missouri, where he learned to fly BT-13's, PT-23's, P-40's, and others. After his training, he was sent to Spence Field, Moultrie, Georgia, where he was a flight instructor. Clark married a WAC, Pvt. Connie Tallmadge, while he and she were both serving in the military in 1944. He had previously been married and divorced. He leaves Spencer Field to go to Lincoln, Nebraska for combat training, then to Pueblo, Colorado, and then to Europe where he was in Italy by September 1944. By February of 1945 he had completed 18 sorties. He needed 35, before he could go home. He died in 1977.

         Harold Clark wrote 8 letters (23 pp.) in this collection. He was the brother of Donald R. Clark and Raymond G. Clark. Harold Clark served in WWII, enlisting in April of 1943. Of these 8 letters, 7 were written when Donald was serving during the war. At first he was stationed at Camp Grant, Illinois, were he possibly received training for the medical corps. He is seen later with the 397th Infantry, 100th Division, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before going to France with his Division in October 1944. Letters are written from Fort Grant, Fort Bragg, France and Germany. He married Mildred Fritz. Before and after the war Harold spent 37 years working as a mechanic and assembler for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. He died 18 November 1993.

Inventory of Archive

Correspondence of Phyllis Hart Clark   

152 letters (733 pp.) of Phyllis Hart Clark written to Raymond G. Clark, dated 1923-1931, two of the letters are not dated.

 266 letters (516 pp.) of Phyllis Hart Clark written to her son Philip Hart Clark, dated 1956-1976. Phyllis writes to her son after he moves out of the house to go to college at Cornell, then after when he went west to Denver, when he was in military service, and then when he was at graduate school at Cornell, then working afterwards.

11 letters (18 pp.), of Phyllis Hart Clark written to Gustavo “Gus” Almorth, 1955-1968.

27 letters (59 pp.), of Phyllis Hart Clark to Esther Hart, 1945-1963; one letter from 1945, the others from 1957-1966.

9 letters (15 pp.), of Phyllis Hart Clark to Lillian Hart Schneider, dated 1958-1966.

23 letters (58 pp.) of Helen Braun, of Hartford, Connecticut and Flushing, New York, to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1926-1960; two letters are from 1926 and two from 1960, the rest are WWII era letters.  Helen appears to have worked with Phyllis in banking in the 1920s and was a war bride, marrying in 1942. Her husband Harry Braun was with Co. A, Barracks 4, General Hospital, Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The war letters represent Helen’s correspondence with Phyllis while her husband was away at war, his getting sick during his service, and his recovery, and Helen’s keeping the household going, finding work, war work, etc.

8 letters (30 pp.) of Edward Clark, of New Britain, Connecticut, to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1926-1927. Edward Clark was the brother of Raymond Clark.

 13 letters (21 pp.) of Sally Clark, of Scotia, New York to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1959-1965. Sally was the wife of Robert C. Clark

10 letters (49 pp.) of Virginia L. Hart, of South Manchester, Connecticut  to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1925-1927.

 72 letters (488 pp.) of Margaret “Guddie” I. Dyer, of Newington Junction, Connecticut, to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1918-1927.

233 letters (484 pp.) of Esther Hart to her sister Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1922-1966, of the 233 letters, 69 of them were written from 1941 to 1945, when Esther Hart was serving as an Army nurse during WWII and stationed abroad at the 58th Evacuation Hospital, Admiralty Islands, and the 54th General Hospital, Dutch New Guinea, to Phyllis Hart Clark, and elsewhere. 

13 letters (53 pp.) of Lillian Lester, of South Norwalk, Connecticut to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1925-1943.

 23 letters (51 pp.) of Lillian Schneider to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1954-1962; Lillian was the wife of William C. Schneider, of Hudson, Ohio

25 letters (65 pp.) written by various relatives to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1926-1961, aunts, cousins, etc.

227 incoming letters (510 pp.) to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1918-1984, from various friends and colleagues, or associates from her various activities (school groups, church groups, community groups, etc.)

Correspondence of Raymond G. Clark

 148 letters (767 pp.) of Raymond G. Clark to Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1923-1932. These letters represent the courtship years of Raymond and Phyllis, they married in 1932

29 outgoing letters (30 pp.) of Raymond G. Clark to various individuals, dated 1925-1965.

24 incoming letters (151 pp.) to Raymond G. Clark from various individuals, dated 1920-1954

Incoming Correspondence to Raymond and Phyllis Clark

63 letters (76 pp.) of Gustavo “Gus” Almorth, of Wallingford, Connecticut and St. Petersburg, Florida to Raymond and Phyllis Clark, 1950-1967; Gustav “Gus” Almorth, machinist/inventor

24 letters (34 pp.) of Mrs. Gustavo Almorth, of Glastonbury and Wallingford, Connecticut dated 1925-1966. Mrs. Almorth signs her letters" Mother,” apparently she married Gustavo Almorth after the death of her first husband.

 74 letters (171 pp.) of Clifford and his wife Lilla Clark, dated 1924-1968, the bulk are from the 1950s and1960s. Clifford Clark is the brother of Raymond Clark.

 35 letters (51 pp.) of Donald R. Clark, dated 1926-1965; Donald R. Clark was the brother of Raymond Clark. He served as a U.S. Air Force pilot during WWII. Of the 35 letters offered here, 26 of them were from his days in the military serving in the European Theater of operations.

 160 letters (268 pp.) of Ethel Clark dated 1938-1968. Ethel was the wife of Robert Clark, Raymond Clark’s brother.

 15 letters (29 pp.) of Robert Clark, dated 1952-1962; Robert Clark was the brother of Raymond Clark, and husband of Ethel Clark.

 8 letters (23 pp.) of Harold Clark dated 1926-1946; Harold Clark was Raymond Clark’s brother. Harold Clark served in WWII. Of these 8 letters, 7 were written when he was serving during the war. At first he was stationed at Camp Grant, IL, were he appears to have received training for the medical corps. He is seen later with the 397th Infantry, 100th Division, at Fort Bragg, NC, before going to France with his Division in October 1944. Letters are written from Fort Grant, Fort Bragg, France and Germany.

71 incoming letters (67 pp.), from various individuals, dated 1932-1959.

 Correspondence of Philip Hart Clark

 190 letters (370 pp.), by Philip Hart Clark to his parents Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Clark, dated 1956-1975. The letters are mostly written from Philip to his parents while attending Cornell University as an undergraduate (1957-1961) and graduate student (1966-1968), and also include letters from when he was traveling as a member of the Cornell University Glee Club when they toured the Far East in the winter and spring of 1966 as part of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Cultural Representations Program. Letters are also included from when he served in the U.S. Air Force (1961-1964). The letters also show Philip breaking away from the dominance of his mother, who is upset that he was still a bachelor at 27 or 28 years old.

 44 letters (57 pp.) of Philip Hart Clark to various individuals, dated 1960-1978.  These letters are retained typed copies, they tend to be concerned with his time in the Air Force Reserve, and when he was working in Washington, D.C.

 59 incoming letters (74 pp.) written to Philip Hart Clark, dated 1942-1982. The bulk of the letters are written to Philip H. Clark in the 1960s and 1970s, these letters are either work related, or related to his military service.

Miscellaneous Correspondence:

 59 miscellaneous letters (105 pp.), from various individuals, dated 1898-1971.

 Diaries:

 1 Diary of M. Belle Worley, dated 1 Jan. 1870 – 12 Feb. 1871, bound in ¼ leather, marbled paper boards, 99 pp., measures 4” x 6 ½”, entries written in ink and pencil, legible hand. It is unclear who M. Belle Worley is, perhaps a possible relative from the 19th Century.    

 1 Diary, unnamed, dated 27 May 1878- 31 January 1879, bound in ¼ leather, marble paper boards, 160 pp., measures 6 ½” x 8”, entries written in ink,  in a legible hand.

1 Diary, unnamed, dated 6-26 Aug 1916, wrappers, 20 pp., measures 5 ¼” x7 ¾”,  possibly kept by Raymond G. Clark, although authorship is unclear, it is a naval diary/journal, off the coast of Connecticut, docking at Lyme, and Newport (RI).

3 volumes of Diaries of Raymond G. Clark, dated 1917 – 1919, 324 pp., measure between 2 ¾” x 5 ¼” and 3 ½” x 5 1/4 ”, two of the volumes are bound in red cloth, the other ¼ red cloth,, paper wrappers, all entries are written in pencil, some entries are whole page, others one line.

10 volumes of Diaries of Mrs. Phyllis Hart Clark, dated 1926-1929, 1935, 1965, 1967-1970, 1972-1973,1977, various black cloth bindings, one red cloth, over 1575 pages, measuring 4”  x 5 ½”” to 5 ¾ ” x 9”,  with some entries being full page, others only one line, they are written in ink and pencil in a legible hand. The diaries for 1926-1929 are in one volume. The 1965 diary is for a “western trip” to Denver, Colorado, kept only during the months of May and June. The diaries from the 1960s and 1970s were kept while she was still living in Glastonbury, before the death of her husband in 1980.

Photographs:

20 photographs, all black and white, various sizes, includes 13 photographs, 8” x 10”, of “Officer’s Club” at Ellsworth Air Force Base that Philip H. Clark appears to have designed, or worked on, a couple of photos of Philip H. Clark, and others who are not identified.

9 bankers' boxes of ephemera (approximately 11 linear feet), includes several thousand pieces of ephemera including folders of typed and manuscript notes, brochures, circulars, handouts, pamphlets, postcards, telegrams, etc., all dated 1930s to 1980s.

The ephemeral material concerns mainly the various organizations and societies that Phyllis Hart Clark belonged to and was involved with, as well as material for her son Philip Hart Clark. The ephemera includes material on the Glastonbury Garden Club; the Glastonbury Council of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA), the Academy PTA, and the High School PTA; the Committee of 30 that was appointed to study the new high school plans; a home nursing course taken by Phyllis during WWII; her activities in the "Defense and the Red Cross" also during the war years; material on her time as the assistant secretary of the Fellowship of the Connecticut Congregational Christian Churches (CCCC) where she had an active role in a troubling time for the Congregationalists churches; ephemera for Mrs. Clark when she was active in the Glastonbury’s Citizen’s Committee on Education, which was to “provide opportunities for community participation in appropriate activities of the school’s program and to establish a relationship between the school and community in mutual interest areas.” There is also material in this collection showing Mrs. Clark activities as President of the Women’s Club of Glastonbury (CT) in 1958-1960; and the Women's Club involvement in the Connecticut State Federation of Women’s Clubs. There are notebooks of meetings, ephemeral material, etc., showing her participation in this organization. There is also material on Phyllis' activities in the early 1970s fighting a proposal to build a horse race track in Wethersfield, CT which according to those against the idea would mean the destruction of hundreds of acres of wetlands and meadows along the lower Connecticut River. There is much ephemera and newspaper clippings concerning this episode in the area’s history. The ephemera collection also includes material on Phyllis H. Clark's son, Philip H. Clark. This material includes his time as an undergrad and graduate student at Cornell University, his involvement in Glee Clubs, in particular his international travels with Cornell's Glee Club, and some ephemera for his early years working for several different architectural firms and for his work in Washington, D.C., as a regional transportation planner (see biography of Philip H. Clark).The postcards are mostly written to Phyllis Hart, later Phyllis H Clark.

An interesting collection of ephemera that gives great insight into the life of a woman, who appears to have spent much time involved in many activities for the good of her family, church, and community, as well as for herself as a woman. She took a very active role in her church, both locally and statewide; in her community's schools, both locally and statewide; and a role in her community and its environment. There is the added bonus of ephemera highlighting an international trip by her son Philip while a member of the Cornell Glee Club. The trip is documented with ephemera in this collection and saw the club travel to the Far East in the winter and spring of 1966 as part of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Cultural Representations Program.  The tour lasted from 3 Feb. to 28 April 1966 and presented 65 to 70 formal concerts. The Glee Club would travel over 30,000 miles, visiting ten different Asian countries