William Hawley Clark

William Hawley Clark was born in Escanaba, Michigan on May 10, 1919, the third child and only son of William James Clark and Elsie Hawley Clark. He graduated from Escanaba High School in 1937 and enrolled at the University of Michigan. In August 1939 he attended the World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam. The onset of World War II held up his plans to study for his junior year abroad at the American University in Beirut. However, after spending the first months of the war in Normandy, France, he eventually made his way to the middle east. He earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Michigan in 1942. While there he was president of the religious society where he met his future wife. On June 12, 1943, Clark married Rosemary Ellen Lehman of Fort Wayne, Indiana at St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Clark attended Chicago Theological School and Episcopal Theological School. He earned his Bachelor of Divinity from ETS in 1945.^{[citation needed]}

Clark was ordained deacon in September 1945 by Bishop James De Wolf Perry of Rhode Island and priest in April 1946 by Bishop Frank W. Creighton of Michigan. He served the Episcopal parishes of St Paul's Flint, and Trinity, Flushing in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan from 1945 to 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he served the parishes of St Peter's in Monroe, Connecticut and St Andrew's in Madison, Connecticut. In 1951 he was called to be rector of Trinity Church in Concord, Massachusetts. During his time there he taught at Episcopal Theological School, served on the standing committee of the diocese, and oversaw plans to expand Trinity in Concord by the building of a new church next to the older one. During the academic year of 1960–1961, he took a family sabbatical with his wife and three children to Canterbury, England. He studied at St Augustine's Abbey.^{[citation needed]}

After one more year at Trinity, Concord, he joined the staff of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. He was Secretary of the Department of Cooperation Between Men and Women in Church, Family, and Society. His travels in this position took him throughout Europe as well as trips to India, Pakistan and Africa.^{[citation needed]} In 1965 he was called to be rector of St Andrew's Church in Wellesley, Massachusetts. During his time there he again served on the standing committee of the diocese. He also fostered communication and cooperation among all the churches of the town. In 1973 he accepted a position as Executive Director of the Worcester County Ecumenical Council in Worcester, Massachusetts.^[1]