SWARTZ. Clark R., Jr. 1917-2018

SWARTZ, MILLER, MORRIS

Posted By: K. L. Kittleson
Date: 8/20/2020 at 11:47:36

Clark R. Swartz Jr., 101, of Friendship Village, died September 23, 2018.

He was born on February 1, 1917 on a homestead near Broadview, Yellowstone County, Montana, to Ethel Miller Swartz and Clark R. Swartz Sr. He graduated from South High School in Omaha, Nebraska in 1934. He picked corn by hand and learned to farm using teams of horses while working for relatives in southwest Iowa during the Great Depression. He then worked as a draftsman at John Deere Tractor Works in Waterloo before enlisting in the United States Navy a few months after Pearl Harbor.

He married Helen Morris on August 14, 1943, while he was stationed at Navy Pier in Chicago. He was later transferred to the Navy Bureau of Personnel in Washington, D.C. and would serve there until he was honorably discharged in 1946.

He and Helen then farmed for three years near Lenox, Iowa, and south of Hudson, Iowa, for fifty years. They moved to Friendship Village in 2000.

Survivors include: a son, Roger (Dr. Mary Laughlin) Swartz of Iowa City, Iowa; a daughter, Mardell Munier, of Chicago, Illinois; and four grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his wife (2009), and his two siblings, a brother and a sister.

Inurnment with private ceremony will be held at a later date at Waterloo Memorial Park Cemetery.
Memorials may be directed to Friendship Village Foundation, 600 Park Lane, Waterloo, IA, 50702

The family would like to thank the staff at both The Lodge and The Pavilion at Friendship Village as well as the staff of Cedar Valley Hospice for their exceptional care.

Arrangements are being made through Kearns Funeral Service.

When he reported to The Bureau of Personnel, the USS Iowa had already gone through sea trials and was on active duty. The Navy needed to improve the performance of the elevators that delivered bags of gunpowder from the magazine to the breeches of the battleship’s sixteen-inch guns. For his drafting the blueprints used to complete that project (using the skills he learned while working on blueprints for tractor transmissions at John Deere) he was promoted to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. His promotion ceremony was conducted by an officer from the Fleet Admiral’s Staff. That explains why he was always proud to say that he “shook the hand that shook the hand of Admiral Nimitz.”

SOURCE: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier

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See a photo of his grave marker at Waterloo Memorial Park Cemetery, on GPP.

GPP
 

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