I met Ken Clements in the summer of 1952, August to be specific. I was nine. Ken was nineteen.
I had come to live at the Episcopal Church Home for Children in Pasadena, California in June of that year, very soon after my mother packed suitcases for my two younger brothers, me, and herself, and left the home we had shared with my father. Their divorce soon followed. In the middle of the last century America was a very different place than it is in the first part of the twenty-first century. My mother had been a stay at home mom for nearly a decade and the jobs then available to women were pretty limited. So too were the options for single parenting. Childcare was a matter of hiring someone and the low wage jobs available to most women made that all but impossible. One alternative was to place children in a “home” operated by your local church so that the single parent could go to work. So, that, reluctantly, was what Mom did.
In those days the Church Home provided a place to live to 64 children, 32 boys, and 32 girls, from 6-16 years of age. Most of the other kids came from situations not unlike ours so adjustment was pretty quick. Arriving at the beginning of summer made that even easier as there were constant programs of activities all aimed at keeping young hands and minds occupied and out of mischief.
During the Month of August every year the Church Home rented a sizeable private summer camp that somehow was connected with the Episcopal church in southern California. The director, cooks, and counselors took all 64 kids off to the camp at Big Bear Lake for the entire month. That allowed the regular staff to have a month of vacation. Families from local churches also enrolled children in the summer camp program, some for only a week, others for the entire month. All together the summer camp program size was around 100 kids.
The expanded number of kids, and need for even more activities, meant there also needed to be more counselors. And, that’s where Ken came into the picture. Ken had just finished his first year at Pasadena City College where he intended to major in journalism. A classmate asked what plans he had for the summer and Ken responded that he intended to line up some sort of summer job. The classmate, whose father was on the Church Home Board of Directors said that he was going to Big Bear lake as a summer counselor and asked if Ken would be interested in applying also. It sounded like a pretty good deal, so he applied and was hired.
I remember little specific about that year at camp, but Ken found that he enjoyed working with children. The director noticed that he seemed to enjoy the challenges and was good at connecting with kids. At the end of the camp program Ken was offered a part time position as a boys counselor back at the Pasadena campus. Room and board were included and the hours allowed time for his own schoolwork so he accepted. Much of my first recollection of Ken started then because his room was right across the hall from the room that I shared with three other boys so we saw a lot of each other.
Just as things were settling in for Ken in this new situation, other things were about to inject a twist. A few days after his 20th birthday, on January 1, 1953, Ken Clements received a draft notice. These were the days of the war in Korea and the military draft was very much in effect. He had 3 weeks to report.
In the short few months of his tenure at the Church Home, first at camp, then at the main campus, Ken had made connections with kids, staff, and a calling that was to change the direction of his life. At a bon voyage dinner just before he left for boot camp the children presented Ken a silver Episcopal medal and chain which he would wear all through his Army days and for many years thereafter.
So, off he went to the U.S. Army, first to boot camp then to military police school. At the end of MP school everyone graduating was issued orders to a first assignment. Of more than 100 in Ken’s class most went to South Korea. Ken’s orders were to an Army base in…drum roll….Vienna, Austria! The good luck didn’t even stop there. Upon arrival one of the first questions he was asked was whether he could type. He could. So, no ordinary military police work for ken. He became the company supply clerk, a position that meant regular day job hours and office working conditions. The fact that happened to be in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and on the opposite side of the world from the fighting was pretty nice too.
One thing that happens to soldiers is that they are moved from place to place. This often means leaving one group and joining another. Now in the Army every group has its own insignia and these come in colorful patches that get sewn onto uniforms. A new assignment always meant off with the old, and on with the new. In those post WWII days kids, boys especially, loved to collect patches. As he moved through the various stages of Army training, and assignments, Ken made a practice of collecting not only his own old patches, but those of anyone he could talk out of theirs. All went into boxes that were dutifully mailed back to the kids at the Church Home.
At the end of 1954, his two year tour of duty to the Army fulfilled Ken was discharged back to civilian life. Almost his first stop back in Pasadena was to the Church Home. His old job was still available, when could he start? So, with two years of growth added to all our lives, Ken Clements was back. He was back at the Church Home, and he was back at school. But, this time there was another change. By now he had decided that he wanted a career working with children so the program of education shifted.
Time passed. Ken continued as a part time counselor at the Home. I remained a couple more years then went to live with my mother, who by then had worked her way up to better paying jobs and was able to bring me home to live. My brothers remained at the Home another year, then they too came home to live. Ken continued school, finally earning a bachelor’s degree from UCLA. I stayed in touch with Ken and he came to visit my family from time to time over the next couple of years. In 1960, at the ripe age of 17, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and headed off on my own military adventures. Ken worked for Los Angeles County for a while, then applied to a master’s program in social work at U.C. Berkeley. Still we stayed in touch, mostly through letters, but on occasion I’d visit if I was home on leave. My tour lasted four years, and when I was discharged in 1964, I moved to San Francisco.
By then Ken had finished grad school with a master’s in social work, and in 1962 accepted a job as a caseworker at another children’s home in the Pasadena area.
Over the next almost 5 decades we exchanged many visits, made trips to Mexico, and Florida, and places in between. But, those are stories for another time.
Larry Luckham
December, 2008