OBITUARY
Homeless man was enriched by a circle of friends
VENICE — Askew Clark was a recognizable figure on the streets of downtown Venice for more than two decades, but those who looked beyond his homelessness discovered a polite and sober former engineer with a remarkable mind.
The college-educate
Friends say that although "Mr. Clark" -- as he was known by many -- had his share of quirks, he was also an honest and often well-dressed gentleman whom they welcomed into their homes or helped in other ways.
"I loved him to pieces and would have done anything for him," said Carol Ostrander of Venice, who opened her home to him and who made sure he came along when she spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with her sister in Bradenton.
"I lost my father years ago, and he was like my surrogate father," she said.
Ostrander and others tried to help Clark move into a low-cost apartment and were willing to cover his $500-a-month rent at the time. But public housing was not for Clark, who preferred to live life on his own terms.
"He was going to get an apartment when a woman walked in with a little boy and they needed a place to stay, and he said, 'Let this woman have it. She needs it,'" Ostrander recalled. "He didn't wait for the next apartment to become available because he always felt that there was someone who needed it more than he did."
At times, Clark slept in a storage facility he rented. A businessman who sold motor homes sometimes let him spend the night in one of his RVs.
Friends are not quite sure how long he was homeless. They say he lived with his mother in Nokomis for many years before she went into an assisted-living
Friends later learned that one of his distant relatives had set up a trust fund for him that he drew from to pay for the storage facility and to put gas in his clutter-filled car before macular degeneration began to rob him of his eyesight.
They are not sure how much was in the trust fund, only that he was extremely frugal and did not fritter away his nest egg on booze, drugs or cigarettes. They also say they never saw him panhandle.
Details about his career are equally sketchy, although friends believe he worked as an electrical engineer who specialized in designing electrical motors. In recent years, he sold screwdrivers, drill bits and other hardware items to businesses. No one is quite sure where he got the items.
His friends do not believe he had any immediate survivors.
He was a voracious reader who spent much of his time at the Venice Public Library, where he read magazines and newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor, and thumbed through encyclopedias.
"He was always researching something," said library manager Ann Hall. "He didn't come here just to hang out."
Sometimes he would nap, but that is not uncommon among elderly library patrons, she added.
Although he may not have had an opportunity to bathe as often as others, he was usually well-groomed and well-dressed, she said.
Clark attended services at First Baptist Church in Venice, where he also took part in an adult Sunday school with other homeless people before the church service.
Businessman Ed Mogford, who led the gathering, liked to call upon Clark to recite poetry to the group.
"To me, if a person doesn't feel wanted, needed and appreciated, you don't have a purpose in life," Mogford said. "I wanted him to feel appreciated.
"He could recite almost anything from memory. He had a tremendous mind."
Askew Hamlin Clark was born June 11, 1924, in Virginia. Failing health forced him to be cared for in a nursing home in recent weeks.
"Who knows, Mr. Clark could have been one of God's angels and He just wanted to see who was taking care of him while he was passing through Venice," Mogford said.
A celebration of Clark's life is planned for 4 p.m. Friday at the First Baptist Church in Venice.
Memorial donations may be made to the Samaritans Chapel, 1200 Ogden Road, Venice, FL 34285 to help homeless people.
