David Clayton Clark passed away peacefully on April 2, 2024 at the age of 92 and will be greatly missed by his children, Kevin, Keith, and Karen, and by his grandchildren, Ryan, Ethan, and Chloe. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee on July 17, 1931. He was preceded in death by his parents, Harry Clark Sr. and Thelma (Black) Clark, his brother, Harry Clark Jr. (Bubba), his sister Donna Veeder, and Patricia (Bills) Clark, his loving wife of 63 years. He was looking forward to seeing Ryan’s new wife, Angelica, who he thought sounded so sweet and looked so pretty when he was able to talk to her.
Always interested in how things work and making things, he became a machinist’s mate in the Navy just after high school. He then attended Tennessee Tech to become a mechanical engineer and also find the love of his life, Sarah Patricia Bills. They were married soon after graduating on March 14, 1959. Somewhere along the line they picked up the pet name Poo for each other. This made handing out Christmas presents marked “To: Poo, From: Poo” difficult. Dave briefly entertained the idea of becoming a preacher in the church of Christ and was temporary preacher for the Franklin Street church of Christ in Huntsville and occasionally preached at Huntland church of Christ in Tennessee. He ultimately stayed with his job at NASA as a mechanical engineer working on environmental testing in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, as well as the International Space Station over the course of his career.
Although he enjoyed his work and the people he worked with over the years, he enjoyed spending time with his family even more. He was very involved as a Boy Scout leader, little league baseball coach, and attended every game his kids were playing in. He served on the board of directors at Madison Academy during a lot of the time his kids were attending. The summer vacations to Fall Creek Falls created lots of great memories for his kids. The things he was most proud of were his wife and kids. He loved spending time with the family in work and play. Later in life he really enjoyed the time spent travelling with Karen to various places he had always been interested in like the Lewis and Clark expedition and Canada.
Pat loved him dearly as well and only got put out with him when she would hear the words “I’ve been thinking about…”. These words were usually followed by something like: Building a boat, from scratch, in the driveway, like Noah but for waterskiing; Converting our old station wagon into a pop up camper (plans from Popular Mechanics) using plywood and an old tent; Building a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar (basically a whole bluegrass band) from scratch; Building a kayak; Flying in a glider plane; Owning a horse (he never was able to pull that off); Building a garage, then another out building (combined, almost as many square feet as the house); Building over 12 muzzle loading rifles; Shooting in high power matches; Shooting in the Single Action Shooters Society (SASS); Participating in a Revolutionary War reenactment; Buying a lathe, then another, then another, followed by a milling machine; Using her kitchen to “blue” the barrel of a gun he was making (only once, never again); Building airplane models from kits that he could fly, and crash, then repair, and crash again; Learning to play the guitar; Learning to play the harmonica; Melting down wheel weights to make bullets for all the muzzle loaders; Learning to weld; and lots of etc.
This past year was really hard on him having lost Pat and not being able to build things or think up new hobbies to conquer. He will be so glad to see her again and hopefully there’s enough to keep him busy for all eternity. Otherwise, he’s sure to say: “You know Poo, I’ve been thinking…”.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations to Chase Park church of Christ or to The Amedisys Foundation.
Visitation will be held at Berryhill Funeral Home on Monday, April 8, 2024, from 9:00AM to 11:00AM, with the service immediately following at 11:00AM. Interment will take place at Huntsville Memory Gardens.
Berryhill Funeral Home is assisting the family.
