Positivity: Russell Clark, 104
At 102, he was named the oldest worker in the US in 2003. He was still with us late last year. He’s enough to make you wonder how you can feel tired during the day:
Dr. Russell B. Clark — who was 104 years old as of December 2004 when he gave this interview — still visits Laie regularly and is in amazingly good health.
Dr. Clark, a general practitioner, was born in Montpelier, Idaho, on Nov. 19, 1900. He clearly remembers Joseph F. Smith was president of the Church when he was growing up, and he served a mission in Florida in 1919.
After graduating from the University of Utah, he completed medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago in 1930. In fact, his son, Steve, noted that Dr. Clark was on duty when the victims of the ill-famed St. Valentine’s Day gangster massacre were brought into the hospital. While he was still in Chicago, President Heber J. Grant set him apart as a high priest and member of the first Chicago stake high council.
Though he retired from medicine, he’s still active in managing some of his real estate holdings; and in October 2003 he was recognized as “America’s oldest worker” by the U.S. Department of Labor. He now lives in Orem, Utah, has five children and 88 other descendants.
Dr. Clark recalled he first visited Hawaii on vacation in 1954 with three of his children, and returned again when President McKay dedicated the campus in 1958.
In the early 1960s, “President Owen Cook and Dr. Taylor at BYU asked me to come over and take care of the students and faculty. There weren’t any other doctors here then,” said Dr. Clark, who soon left his practice in Artesia, California, to come to the Church College of Hawaii for one year.
“It was a beautiful campus struggling to become larger,” Dr. Clark continued. “The students were outgrowing it. They were very healthy. The ailments were not very serious — two or three appendices. We would take them down to the hospital in Kahuku.”
“I think we had an outstanding faculty. They were very courteous and loyal. There were not too many illnesses or any operations that I remember. The labor missionaries were also among my patients, but there were very few calls. They were very healthy.”
“After we got here, they didn’t have enough professors, so the dean, Dr. Kay Anderson, asked me to teach three health classes,” Dr. Clark said. His son, Steve, added that they “lived in one of the women’s dorms for a while, because there weren’t any other vacancies.”
“Then they found a home for us on Temple Beach,” Dr. Clark continued. “We had brought a TV with us, turned it on, but found out there was no reception.
“I came back in 1968 for two more years. At that time they wanted to build a health center. In the meantime, we were using one of the bungalows behind the post office.”
Dr. Clark’s sons, Robert and Steve, took advanced classes at the university while still students at Kahuku High. “Robert is a family practitioner in Payson, Utah. He also is very involved in the Church’s humanitarian program. He goes to China a lot and gives neonatal health classes,” said Steve, who remembers taking a circular slide rule course from Brother Richard Coburn, chuckling at the memory of the outdated technology.
In his spare time, Dr. Clark enjoyed playing golf at Kahuku. He would also take his kids to Kahuku Theater for the movies that changed every night. “Of course, you had to bring your own mosquito punk,” Steve added, “or buy it at the snack counter.”
Today, Dr. Clark appreciates the large campus, “that can take care of more students. It has grown exceedingly since my days. The buildings are more beautiful and have up-to-date equipment.”
“After leaving in 1970, I looked forward to coming back on vacation, because I was so busy in my practice that I couldn’t get away except for a brief visit once a year,” said Dr. Clark, who estimates he’s been to Hawaii about 50 times. “This is one of my favorite places to visit.”
Dr. Clark and his wife, Donna, who is a “much younger” 86, served a mission in Jamaica in 1980 “giving patriarchal blessings.”
The centenarian Dr. Clark attributes his longevity to “good genes. I have an aunt that lived to be 106, an uncle that lived to be 105, a brother who lived to be 100-and-a-half, and a ‘baby sister’ who’s 97. She still serves as a hospital volunteer in Salt Lake City.”
He added he takes no medication. His diet: “Not too much meat, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and two quarts of fluids a day. I love fruit juices.”
Dr. Clark also exercises regularly. “When I was younger, it was riding horses, tobogganing, sports and working. Now it’s walking. I’ve been in about four marathons,” he said, adding he recently participated in the senior Olympics in St. George, Utah, including the 50-yard-dash and the 440 events.
“Basically it was walking, but I got two ribbons. The closest competitors were only in their 90s.”
“I look forward to another year,” he added. “I’m not the time keeper.”
