Serving his country, his community, and his fellow veterans
By Jonathan Monfiletto
His great-grandfather escaped from slavery in Virginia and worked for the Union Army during the Civil War. His grandfather made a family home on Cherry Street in Penn Yan and owned a blacksmith shop on Maiden Lane in the village. His father served during World War I as apparently the only Black soldier from Yates County in the conflict. And Stanley Clark followed in their footsteps and made his own history in a career of service to the military and the community.
Stanley Clark was born January 21, 1935 in Penn Yan to Franklin and Lena Clark, who at the time lived on North Avenue in Penn Yan. Franklin, in turn, had been born in August 1894 in Ingleside, near Prattsburgh in Steuben County, to William and Sarah Clark and – at least by the time of his entrance into the military – raised in their Cherry Street home. Franklin served as a farrier sergeant – he took care of the horses, forging and fitting their shoes, among other tasks – with Battery D of the 349th Field Artillery, 92nd Division. Department from Camp Dix, New Jersey, Franklin served from his drafting in November 1917 until his discharge at Camp Upton, New York in March 1919.
Stanley Clark died at age 85 on December 21, 2020 – exactly one month before his 86th birthday – having served his country and his comrades in the U.S. Army for a full 20 years, as director of the Yates County Veterans’ Service Agency, and with the American Legion at the post, county, district, state, and national levels. Though he is recent in history, as I like to say of those who existed during living memory – I’m sure there is someone reading this article who knew Stanley – I wanted to write about him because I have written about the three generations in his family who came before him.
These generations include Nathaniel Clark – Stanley’s great-grandfather – and Franklin, whose military service I wrote about in honor of Black History Month on February 9, 2022, just the second article on the Oliver’s Travels blog. At the time, I hadn’t firmly connected the two men as relatives, but on November 23, 2022, I wrote about the two men and connected them through William, Nathaniel’s oldest child and Franklin’s father. Since that time, I have been researching Stanley – the fourth generation of the family to live in Penn Yan – and wanting to write about him to close the loop, so to speak.
A quick word about Nathaniel before I continue on with Stanley’s story: Born into slavery in October 1842 on a plantation near Port Royal, Virginia, he worked as a porter at a hotel in Bowling Green when troops under command of Union General Ambrose Burnside took him and other enslaved people and assigned them to different duties. Nathaniel worked for Col. William Clark (it is unclear if this is a coincidence or if Nathaniel eventually adopted Clark’s surname) as a cook and caretaker with the 9th Army Corps, 3rd Division, 2nd Brigade.
Three years later, during a battle at Suffolk, Virginia, Clark was taken prisoner by the Confederate Army and made a cook on a Confederate vessel. After six weeks on the ship, Clark and Uncle Joe, a fellow enslaved man, deserted the army, signaled a Union picket boat, and then helped sink the Confederate ship and free the Union prisoners.
Stanley followed his father and great-grandfather into military service while still a student at Geneva High School, enlisting in the U.S. Army at age 17 in 1952 and receiving his high school diploma while on active duty. He retired with the rank of sergeant first class 20 years later in 1972. In between, he served with the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War from 1952 to 1953. He later served two deployments during the Vietnam War, first from 1965 to 1967 with the 1st Infantry Division and then from 1969 to 1971 with the 197th Transportation Battalion. During his second tour, Stanley was the captain of a tugboat on the Mekong River. For his career of service, he received the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Korean and Vietnam Service Medals.
Two years after retiring from the Army, Stanley embarked on another 20-year career of serving his fellow veterans. In 1974, the Yates County Legislature appointed him as the county’s director of veterans affairs. At the time, Stanley was 39 years old and living on Main Street in Dundee. Upon his retirement in 1994, Stanley was the honoree of a testimonial dinner held at Johnson Costello American Legion Post 355 in Penn Yan. The 50 guests in attendance included the sitting State Assemblyman and a representative of the sitting State Senator, both of whom presented Stanley with citations; Yates County legislators, officials, and co-workers; members of the American Legion, VFW, and 40/8 as well as their ladies auxiliaries; and Stanley’s son James.
The following year, Stanley was named Humanitarian of the Year 1994-95 by the Seventh District of the American Legion. The Johnson Costello post had nominated him for that honor as well as for Legionnaire of the Year; the Yates County American Legion had awarded both of these honors to him and forwarded his nominations to the district level. He had joined the Johnson Costello post in 1972, after his own military career, and worked his way up to Post Commander for the year 1977-78. He served as Yates County Commander in 1985, District Commander Aide in 1986, and New York Department Sergeant-At-Arms in 1987.
“Stories of his assistance to veterans, their spouses, and family are endless and cover any hour of the day. He is just a very nice person, and I like him,” said Joan Byrnside, of the Dundee American Legion Auxiliary. These stories – largely during his tenure as veterans services director – range from transporting veterans to the hospital in his own vehicle after hours to assisting and comforting a dying veteran’s wife to serving as fiduciary for 15 veterans who were unable to handle their own affairs.
A decade later, for the term running from July 2005 to July 2006, Clark was elected American Legion State Commander, the first resident of Yates County to hold this position. Part of his duties included visiting every American Legion post home in the state, and as a result he logged 31,600 miles on his Legion-provided car. He visited Yates County posts in Penn Yan and Dundee in March 2006 for a homecoming celebration of sorts before he concluded his tenure a few months later.
In 2011, the Department of New York State elected Stanley as its Alternate National Executive Committeeman, one of two representatives of the state on the American Legion’s National Executive Committee, the organization’s policy-making board. With a two-year term as the alternate, Stanley once again became the first resident of Yates County to have this role and was in line to serve another two years as National Executive Committeeman.
Stanley’s son Stan also served in the Army and is currently the commander of the Yates County American Legion. From a patriarch who achieved his freedom from slavery, the five generations of the Clark family in Yates County have each made their own contributions to their country and their community.