William A. Clark

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William A. Clark bigraphy, stories - American politician

William A. Clark : biography

January 8, 1839 – March 2, 1925

William Andrews Clark, Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads.

Clarkdale, Arizona

Clarkdale, Arizona, named for Clark, was the site of smelting operations for Clark’s mines in nearby Jerome, Arizona. The town includes the historic Clark Mansion, which sustained severe fire damage on June 25, 2010. Clarkdale is home to the Verde Canyon Railroad wilderness train ride which follows the historic route that Clark had constructed in 1911.

Family

William married Catherine Louise "Kate" Stauffer (1840 Pennsylvania – 1893 New York). They had the following children;

  • Mary Joaquina (May) Clark Culver Kling de Brabant (January 1870 Montana – December 19, 1939 New York)
  • Charles Walker (Charlie) Clark (November 3, 1871 Montana – April 3, 1933 New York)
  • William Andrews Clark, Jr. (March 29, 1877 Montana – June 14, 1934 California)
  • Paul Francis Clark (January 1880 France – 1896)
  • Katherine Louise Clark Morris (May 11, 1882 Montana – unknown)

After Kate’s death, William married the woman who had been his teenage ward, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle (March 10, 1878 Michigan – October 11, 1963 New York). They claimed to have been married in 1901 in France. Anna was 23 and William was 62.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38719231/ns/business-small_business/ They had two children;

  • Louise Amelia Andrée Clark (August 13, 1902 Spain – August 6, 1919 Maine); died of meningitis
  • Huguette Marcelle Clark (June 9, 1906 Paris, France – May 24, 2011 New York City).

William Andrews Clark, Jr.

Clark’s son, William Andrews Clark, Jr., founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919, left his library of rare books and manuscripts to the regents of the University of California, Los Angeles. Today, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library specializes in English literature and history from 1641 to 1800, materials related to Oscar Wilde and his associates, and fine printing.

Huguette Marcelle Clark

Born in Paris, France, in June 1906, Huguette (pronounced: hyoo-GETT) was known as a reclusive heiress, who was the younger daughter of former U.S. Senator William A. Clark’s children with his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle. She was reportedly "devastated" by the death of her sister in 1919, but in the mid-1920s she was fixture in the society pages of the New York City newspapers as one America’s most eligible young women. She made her society debut in 1926, one year after her father died. In 1928 she married William MacDonald Gower, the son of a business associate of her late father. Their marriage lasted less than one year and in 1930 she traveled to Reno, Nevada, to obtain a quick, uncontested divorce: a photograph taken of her the day her divorce became final was the last image ever made public. She retreated to her magnificent 42-room Manhattan apartments on New York’s Fifth Avenue at 72nd Street, overlooking Central Park, and lived in isolation with her mother. In 1988, she moved out of her apartment and lived the remainder of her life, voluntarily, in New York City hospitals.

In February 2010, she became the subject of a series of reports on msnbc.com after caretakers at all three of her residences had not seen her in decades despite the fact she controlled a net worth estimated at $500 million, including a $24 million estate in Connecticut, and her Fifth Ave. apartment valued at $100 million. It was later determined that she was in the care of a New York City hospital. Building staff reported that she was frail but not ill when she left her Fifth Avenue co-op in an ambulance in the late 1980s. In August 2010, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office initiated a probe into the her affairs managed by her accountant, Irving Kamsler, and her attorney, Wallace Bock. Recently Bock submitted a legal response to a petition filed by three of her relatives seeking to have an independent guardian put in charge of her affairs. In that filing he states that in 1988 Huguette Clark voluntarily decided to live at Mount Sinai Medical Center before being transferred to Beth Israel Medical Center where she died on the morning of May 24, 2011. She was 104.