Brent Clark

Brent Clark
Sex	M
Birth date	1920
Birth place	Chicago
Death date	January 24,2004
Death place	Spearfish Lake
Spouse	Ursula Mandenberg
Father	Wayne Clark
Mother	Flora Clark
Children Ryan Clark M 1946

Brent Clark was the patriarch of the Clark family in the Spearfish Lake Series.

He was son of Wayne and his first wife, Flora Clark, who died when Brent was very young. Brent was eighty-four in January 2004, meaning he was born in 1920 or so.^HC7

He was raised by nannies while his father was occupied by business. He spent his childhood in Chicago in the "Roaring Twenties". Wayne decided to get out of the stock market about six months before the crash, and move to the family so-called summer cottage in Spearfish Lake in 1929.^HC8

It is well known that he did not get along well with his step mother Donna Clark, especially in the matter of the inheritance of his father's estate.

Brent went to an unnamed college and was in the ROTC program. He returned to Spearfish Lake "a second lieutenant in the local National Guard field artillery unit, "D" Battery, not long before World War II broke out."^HC8. His friendship with the battery commander, Garth Matson dated from this time and only grew stronger during and after the war. The unit fought in Italy. Even before the unit was sent overseas, Garth's wife Donna had run off with Brent's father and it was clear Brent's friendship prevented any bonding with his new step-mother.

Brent avoided his father's company, Clark Plywood, and with Garth's help he founded and built Clark Construction, which shortly became the largest construction company in the Spearfish Lake area.^DW17 Years later, when Brent's grandson returns from college at NMU, Randy Clark becomes Brent's assistant and is groomed to take over managing the construction company when Brent retires.

When polio came to Spearfish Lake in August 1955 Garth Matson asked Brent to make a respirator from plans in a January 1952 edition of Popular Mechanics. He was helped by Dan Evachevski and Joe Paulsen.^FK14 When it wasn't complete but needed in a hurry his nine year old son Ryan suggested a version quick to make,^FK16 which was later modified with an addition from Ryan.^FK17 In total three wooden lungs were built and used for polio patients.^FK20

Brent's introduction to Ursula Mandenberg was orchestrated by Garth's matchmaking wife, Helga Matson, as she had been hired to design "Commons", the largest building at West Turtle Lake Club and his company was building it. Their marriage produced only one child, Ryan, before she tragically died in a car wreck in 1959. As his son described it, " when she died a lot of the light went out of my father’s life and it never really returned."^HC8 Since his wife's death, Brent Clark lived in a house on Point Drive, just further down the road from his father's old mansion.^HC2 Alma Johansen had been Brent's housekeeper for years and after his second heart attack, she moved in with him so Brent wouldn't be alone - and in case another one occurred.^HC2

While only having one son, Brent had three grandchildren: Rachel, Ruth and Randy. Brent had been active and vital in 1997, when Randy first started working with him. He had a heart attack in 2000, followed by at least one more; after which his health and strength had been going steadily downhill. By mid-2002 Randy was virtually running Clark Construction, with Brent giving just general guidance and making overall policy decisions.^HC2 In January 2004 Brent had another heart attack and the paramedics called the medevac helicopter to ferry him to the Camden hospital. Brent didn't make it off the helicopter.^HC7

In The West Turtle Lake Club there are two suggestions that Brent and Ursula had a second son. Ursula was pregnant in 1954,^WTLC20 and Wayne Clark left shares in Clark Plywood to both of his minor grandsons, the children of Brent Clark.^WTLC40 There is no other reference to a second son in any of the other stories.