Our History
The Clarks
It’s difficult to go very far back in the Clark family history. We think we’re Irish, but really that’s all hearsay. What we do know is that my grandfather, Bobby Clark, was sent to a children’s home in Macon, GA at young age after his father died and his mother could not support the six children. It was there that Bobby developed an intense fear of rats when he awoke one morning to his brother Jack’s screaming as a field rat sat on his chest, biting at his neck. It was also in the children’s home that he ran through an open fire that gave him a scar that stayed with him until death in 1997. There was an old crazy woman who would wander near the home that always carried a big sack. All the kids were afraid of her. But one day, Bobby decided he was going to be brave. So he walked up to her and asked, “What’s in the sack?” And the old woman looked at him and smiled, “Little boys’ heads. And yours is next.” Bobby was so scared he bolted away without watching where he was going and ran straight through the fire that had been lit to heat the laundry kettle. This is how time was spent until the Clark kids left the children’s home.
A quick bit about Jack Clark: Jack was always getting into trouble.
He was actually kicked out of the children’s home because he was
caught with the warden’s daughter out on the lake or smoking or
something rambunctious like that at midnight. He was a bit of an
alcoholic later in life but was, according to my dad, one of the most
loving people you could ever meet. Jack got married and had
several kids, one of which was named Ricky – who stole my dad’s
intended name, but that’s another story – and the other was Toby.
Toby was the rebellious type. As a young man, he approached his
dad one day about planting a flower along with the tomato plants.
And so Jack, the loving father that he was, planted the supposed
flower and took really great care of it, watering it and pruning it
when needed. Well come to find out that flower wasn’t just a
flower, it was weed. Another time, Toby figured a way to siphon
electricity from the neighbors. Well the neighbors found out and
had Jack arrested. So Bobby had to make his way down to court
and said to the judge, listen, there are many reasons why Jack
should probably be in jail, but tampering with electricity is not one
of them. You see, Jack was incredibly afraid of electricity. So the
judge let him out of jail under the condition that he never return
to Glynn County. Never return to Glynn County. I don’t know about
you, but to me that sounds a bit extreme.
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Then there’s Bo Clark, whose real name has been lost in history, who went and died of a heart attack during a Georgia Bulldogs football game because some play had him all fired up.
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Joyce and Martha owned a car that didn’t have air conditioning. But, because they wanted to look cool like the wealthier kids, they would ride downtown with the windows rolled up as if they weren’t sweating their faces off inside. Martha eventually settled down and married a man in Brunswick, GA.
Bobby joined the Army. When he returned, he lived with Martha who just so happened to live across the street from the Booth family.
The Booths
Winnie Lee Booth was married several times throughout her life and so her maiden name has been forgotten. After having two children, Philip and Mary, Winnie’s husband died of a brain aneurism. Winnie started working as a waitress at the Sea Island Hotel. And that’s where she met Oakley Booth, a bellman from New York. When my dad told me he was from New York, I about fell out of my chair. The Clark family is the most unlikely place to find a yankee, but here we are. I never got to meet Oakley, or Papa Booth as my dad calls him, but from what I can gather, he was a beloved member of the family
and the community. Oakley was real smart; he would rent out television sets to the hotel guests to make side money. Every Christmas at the hotel’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Oakley had the honor of shouting, “Make way for the Yule Log!” as he carried the first wood of the season through the lobby. It was a big to do. He must have really loved his job because he died there. In retirement, Oakley was allowed access to the golf courses and one day he swung, got in the cart, and just fell over dead. Coolest death in the family according to my dad.
So Winnie, who we now refer to as Granny Booth, was a Pentecostal woman. Granny Booth put the fear of God and the love of sugar into everyone she ever came across. As a result,
Oakley never drank. It wasn’t until he died that his secret flask of whiskey was discovered in the shed out back. Granny Booth would chastise you one second and then fill you with sugar until it was coming out of your ears the next. My dad remembers going to visit Granny Booth and eating sliced apples, Hershey kisses, ice cream, and Jello off metallic folding trays while watching TV. This woman put sugar in everything: her coleslaw, her pressure cooked spaghetti – mushy and served for days – already sweetened sweet tea, and Jello. She added so much sugar to the Jello that it couldn’t all dissolve so there’d be a crunchy layer of sweetness at the bottom of every batch.
And it was probably the constant sugar rush that caused Winnie’s son Philip to be as rambunctious as he was. When and he and his sister Mary would go visit their grandparents in Zuta, they’d climb the fire tower to smoke cigarettes. Kind of ironic. But when Philip, we call him Peewee, grew up, he mended his ways and became a fire and brimstone preacher whose wife spoke in tongues.
Maybe it’s our roots in passionate religion that can explain my belief in fate, serendipity, destiny, divine intervention, whatever you want to call it. But all I can say is that nothing happens by accident and I believe there are signs along the way. And for some of you that may sound crazy, but I think my family history proves it, and you’ll see why.
Mary Ellen, my Granny, was the gem of the Booth family who had many suitors in her youth. The one she remembers most clearly was a Filipino naval officer named Eddy who was stationed for a time in Brunswick. But when he was transferred, the romance ended. It was around this time that Bobby Clark had returned from the Army and moved in across the street. He took one look at Mary and decided to go over and borrow an Elvis record.
He hated Elvis.
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A New Generation
The two got married and had Patricia and Robert, who was supposed to be Ricky. Granny and her sister-in-law – Jack’s wife – were pregnant at the same time. And Granny told this woman that she was gonna name her boy Richard Darryl. But by the time Granny had her baby, it was too late because Jack’s wife stole that name right from her. To this day Granny swears she was wronged.
Anyways, Robert not Ricky was a rambunctious kid who busted his head open so many times that the doctors in the emergency room had to question Granny about child abuse. True, she may have kept my dad tied to a tree so he wouldn’t wander, but let’s be honest, he probably deserved it. And the head bustings were entirely accidental – table corners, sports injuries, car wrecks – honestly it’s a wonder my dad survived and that I’m here today.
My dad was a cute little cotton top with blue eyes and curls for days. As a result, he was often the teachers’ favorite even though he didn’t always do his work. He could get away with a lot of things other kids couldn’t. And let me tell you, I don’t think he’s ever lost that strain of evil genius that every little boy is born with but eventually grows out of. His has only gotten stronger.
I think my dad is one of the most intelligent people ever. For lots of reasons. But the main one is for being ambitious enough to work during high school at the local Burger King. It was here that he met Maria Lim, the ethnically exotic cashier who liked his Camero.
And the rest is history.
JK, I’m gonna make you listen to this part, too.
On the Island
We can trace the Lims back to China. My great-grandfather was a wealthy Chinese businessman who travelled with his wife and seven children to live in the Philippines. Well his wife died. So, great-grandpa Lim took a picture of his oldest son, put his own name on it, and sent it back to China as an advertisement for procuring a wife. And so Punsa was sent over to the Philippines to meet her new, young husband, but lo and behold, she was marrying an older man with seven kids. Talk about plot twist. Great-grandpa Lim and Punsa had four children. Astor Lim, the youngest of eleven, would become my grandfather, Lolo.
Lolo was born on the island of Bohol in 1936. Growing up, he and his friends would chase women down the street in an attempt to attract their attention. In the 60s, he went to medical school where he met Leonila, a fiery Filipino woman studying to become a nurse and who would become
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my grandmother, Lola. Lola was the youngest of three children whose mother died when she was young. And when her father had a new girlfriend whom he really liked, Lola literally chased her off of their property, running down the street behind this woman until she disappeared.
Anyways, they were married and lived with Punsa until Lola couldn’t take it anymore. So Lolo bought a gas station that had a house attached and the two lived there with their three children, Maria, Astor Jr., and Al.
Hearing my mom’s memories from the Philippines is really fascinating. It’s incredible to me that there is life so far away – that people can have some of the same experiences in such drastically different worlds.
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My mom would ride up and down the aisles of the gas station, scratching up the walls while her mom dried coconut out front. They were a fortunate family. Lolo was the only physician in town. While they lived on the beach, Lolo would drive his jeep into the mountains to make house calls and would return with a goat, a chicken, eggs, whatever the families had in terms of payment. And he loved what he did. Their house had an indoor toilet and a generator to run lights at night. They slept on rattan beds without mattresses so the air could flow throw the fibers and kept themselves covered with cheesecloth as mosquito nets.
The islands were under martial law and all guns were confiscated. My mom remembers Lolo having to surrender his gun that he had used to shoot a pesky rooster in their backyard. So in 1972, Lola immigrated to Little Rock, Arkansas to work as a nurse. Six months later, Lolo came over with the kids. They lived in a small apartment that had a window air conditioning unit that my mom would use as a tent peg for her blanket forts. She somehow managed to electrocute herself while tucking in the blanket and is, to this day, terrified of even the slightest bit of electricity.
In 1974, they moved to Chicago. There they lived on the fifth story of a high rise building and had a television set that was suspended in the middle of a pole that ran from floor to ceiling. There was a terrible blizzard that winter and my mom can remember watching Lolo drive up to the building in his apple green Nova when it broke down right in the middle of the street. So he got out. And he walked away. And the car stayed right there until the thaw. Another time, Lolo was almost killed in car wreck when he was hit by an uninsured drunk drive named, wait for it, Robert Clark. Lol. The only other thing of note that my mom remembers from their time in Chicago is that on July 4th, 1976, she won an apple pie on the radio for providing the correct answer to an Independence Day themed question.
In 1977, they moved to Cairo, IL where my mom “won all kids of awards, blah blah, you know, it’s so boring.” Their neighbor offered to take my mom out on a date hunting doves. And my mom was like, “Who wants to shoot a dove? No.” And that was Cairo.
In 1981, the Lims moved to Brunswick, GA. My mom started working at Burger King in 1982 and the rest is history.
JK again, there’s more.
Small Town Life
In small towns like Brunswick, GA, it’s most common that people meet whoever they’re going to end up marrying at some point in their childhood. I think it’s crazy that of all the places in the world, my grandparents all ended up in Brunswick, GA and that my parents ended up working at the same place in high school. I’ve often wondered what it was like
when my parents met. I mean, how awkward was it? Cause I’m pretty
awkward myself, so it has to come from somewhere.
And I think it’s pretty impressive that their relationship
lasted because, pretty early on in their dating, my mom
– the Catholic that she is – insisted on attending sunrise
Mass on Easter. So my dad woke up early, got all dressed
up in a tie – my dad never wears ties, or long pants, or
shoes, so he’s in this for the win – and drove all the way
over to my mom’s house across town only to find that all
the lights were off and my mom was still asleep.
In 1983, my mom graduated from high school and went
to Brunswick Junior College on a scholarship where she
got an Associates in Nursing. She then went to the
University of Georgia in 1986 to pursue Pharmacy
licensure. So my parents did the whole long distance
thing. But after one year of this, my mom decided she
didn’t like the whole “bodily fluids” thing and went back
home to work as an RN but primarily office manager for
Lolo’s family clinic.
My parents got married in 1989 and the rest is history.
Now they’ve got me and my dog to keep their lives
interesting. You’re welcome, Parents.
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