About

Clarence Sharp Barker was born to Frederick Ellis Barker and Cecilia Sharp in Salt Lake City on April 1, 1903, the youngest of seven children.  He was a writer by profession and left a short history of his life.  My aunt, Ruth Barker transcribed that history, and I put it online to share with relatives.  A couple of years ago, another aunt, Miriam Zabriskie, handed me a small container of pictures from Fawz's (his family nickname) mission.  I was delighted!  I looked forward to sorting through the pictures and inserting them into his narrative.  Finally, a child or two later, I've scanned the pictures and created this blog containing both text and pictures from his mission for all to see.

When Clarence was 26, he left for his mission to South Africa for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He traveled across the Pacific, served, then returned home through Europe and across the Atlantic.  His mother and sister met him on the east coast and they drove a Ford Model B back to Utah.  He returned home after four months of travel at age 29.  The entire venture took approximately 1200 days.

Post high school, yet prior to his mission, he wrote:

After graduating from LDS High School in 1921, I attended the University of Utah. I detested ROTC and dropped this after the first year. I enjoyed greatly English composition and literature and worked two years on the Utah Chronicle becoming news editor the second year. I joined a social fraternity, Phi Pi Phi, in my junior year and was a member of Signa Upsilon, literary fraternity, the French Circle and Education Club. But I was not too much of a social person and did not attend many dances until my senior year. I also played tennis and swam. . . .

I was determined to get a job as a newspaper reporter, but since I was unable to find this for several years, I worked as a service station attendant earning 40 cents an hour. My father had died of a brain tumor November 12, 1921 and my grandmother [Margaret Condie] Sharp died in 1924, at age 88, leaving only Mother and my sister Lucile at home with me.

I finally was able to work my way in as a full time copy boy at the Deseret News beginning in the late fall of 1928 at $15.00 a week. I was writing obits and doing general assignments when I was called to fill a mission in South Africa.

I entered the Missionary Home which was on State Street north of the Beehive House in April 1929 and after nearly a week's strenuous training left by Western Pacific train for San Francisco and then to South Africa.

Clarence is middle row, third from right with glasses