Irving Vant Clarke

Irving Vant Clarke passed away on September 22, 2024.  He was born on February 12, 1924, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of Kenton Harper Clarke, Jr. and Dorothy Vant Clarke, and the younger brother of Kenton Harper Clarke III, who was an Army Air Corps pilot in World War II killed when his bomber was shot down over the Pacific. His family moved to Hinsdale, Illinois in 1930 where he attended Monroe School, and Hinsdale Township High School when it was located on the present site of the Hinsdale Middle School.  He had a B.A degree from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His college education was interrupted by World War II during which he served in the U.S. Navy. He was the Tactical Radar Officer on a destroyer earning two battle stars for his ship’s participation in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  While on radar picket duty near Okinawa his ship was hit by a suicide plane carrying a bomb resulting in the death of 47 crewmen.

Mr. Clarke began his business career with Swift & Company (later named Esmark, Inc.), managing its pension fund investments and other funds.  He presided over this operation when it was spun off as a separate company.  He was a director of Globe Life Insurance Company, and other Swift-related insurance companies.  For six years he served on the investment advisory board of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in Washington, D.C. which took over the pension programs of companies that went out of business.  Early retirement occurred in 1979. 

Other activities included 32 years on the board of the Robert Crown Center for Health Education and a similar period on the board of Washington Square, a retirement home. As a member of Union Church of Hinsdale UCC, he served, among many other ways, on its board of trustees three different times, chairing it twice, and was one of the founders of its Endowment Fund. As a member of Dairymen’s Inc, a resort complex near Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, he was an avid musky fisherman.

Mr. Clarke’s closest relatives are cousins and their families.  A memorial service will be held at Union Church of Hinsdale on Friday, September 27 at 10:00 am.  Burial will be at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Chicago. Memorials may be made to the Endowment Fund of the Union Church of Hinsdale, 137 South Garfield, Hinsdale, Illinois 60521. 

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