Clark Family has close ties with early development

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Description: Talk golf around Levin and the name Clark must come up.

Look down the main street and one of the most prominent business signs you see in town has the name Clark on it.

It has been there since 1894.

It was in that year that William Mace Clark bought out the business of Te Aro House, Wellington, that, two years previously, he had come here to manage.

Two sons, Bill, now 84, and Elsdon, now 81, took over the business in 1934 and a grandson, Brian Campbell, now manages William Clark and Son.

The connection with golf began in 1911 when the late Mr W.M. Clark became interested in the sport and helped form a club here.

Bill Clark started playing at the age of 13.

His prowess on the course is legend as his many trophies and inscriptions on the club championship board will attest.

He was born in Granny Retter's nursing home (where the Oxford Hotel now stands) in a house later moved to Waitarere Beach for use by the RSA.

During World War 1 he served with the NZ Machinegun Company and was invalided out of Pachen-dale. He played rugby and was selected in a trial team to pick a side to go to England from France. On his return from the war, he joined his father's business.

ELSDON

Mr W.M. Clark's other son Elsdon was born in the old homestead at 51 Saulisbury Street in August, 1899.

He went to kindergarten school, run by the daughter of a local chemist, situated at the corner of Saulisbury and Queen streets. He finished his education in Levin and entered his father's business in 1914 at the commencement of World War I.

In 1919, Elsdon went to Chicago to attend a school of show card writing and window dressing and moved on to San Francisco where he worked in the Emporium dry goods store for 12 months, returning to his father's business in 1920.

In 1923, Elsdon left Levin again, this time travelling with a companion and working his way through Canada. He worked for the British Columbia Electricity Company and then went on to Sascatchewen to help bring in the 1923 wheat harvest. He went on to San Francisco where he again worked in the Emporium before returning to 'Levin.

Working in his father's business, he married Blanche Elma Reeve in 1927.

WALKING FEATS

Fond of mountaineering and tramping, Elsdon thought nothing of walking from Levin

a companion and working his to Feilding in a day and on another occasion walked from Levin to Paekakariki one day, then on to Plimmerston the next 'day. _He recalls he walked to Shannon on 27 occasions, using the rail track for part of the way.

Aged 42 in 1942, Elsdon joined the armed services and, although older than most of the men then in camp, survived the tough training schedule. He was posted to the 10th Field Ambulance Unit.

Golf was also Elsdon's interest and he won the Levin championship twice and the Otaki championship once. He is also a life member of the Levin golf club. Elsdon played a large part in the development of the Moutere course and on fact gave up golf for six years while it was developed.

With the death of his wife, their property was passed to the Presbyterian Social Services Association for, the establishment of Reevedon Home. The name Reevedon is a combination of his late wife's maiden name of Reeve and Elsdon.

Three years after his wife's death, Elsdon married Thelma Kilsby and is currently living at Linton.