Born in rural Beaver Township, Pulaski County, Indiana, Rolla was the fifth of seven children born to Elizabeth Haggerty and William Henry Clark. He started elementary school in Gas City, Grant County Indiana in 1906, where his father worked in the oil fields. The family moved to Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania, known as the icebox of the state. Another move brought the family to Hornell, New York, where his father got a job as a turntable operator on the Erie Railroad. He worked there for thirteen years until his death in 1920 when Roland was still twenty and had two younger siblings.
Roland was a sickly child, and because of all the school he missed, he was still a high school student at nineteen when others his age were being drafted for World War I. The town barber, who was also a prize fighter, did his road work in the mornings. Skinny and weak Roland would run behind him trying to build up his strength. He started lifting weights and learned boxing, which became his financial key to a college education at Alfred where he majored in ceramic engineering. The Alfred University 1924 yearbook has this to say of Roland Francis Clark:
"Tony" "O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength." Hornell High School; Ceramic Engineering; Eta Phi Gamma (1, 2, 3); Class Football (1, 2); Ceramic Society (1, 2, 3); Royal Order of the Flies (3)
Appearances are often deceitful. Though apparently an unobtrusive person, "Tony" has shown himself to be full of "pep and go". It is generally known that he can wield a "wicked Fist" and that he is also a clever "mat artist". Tho not very big "Tony" is physically a powerful fellow, as is evidenced by his work in class football. He is also a "hard hitter" when it comes to class duties and studies. But Clark, himself, has been "hard hit", and we grieve with him at the present absence of the fair cause. We are certain that his hard work and perseverance will not go unrewarded."
The middle name Francis was a mistake. The allusion to the "fair cause" was in reference to the death of Elizabeth Moore, his fiancee. After graduating from Alfred, Roland attended the University of Washington in Seattle. Armed with a Master's Degree in ceramic engineering, he moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he did freelance consulting for several abrasive industry companies. While working at the Simonds Abrasive Company, this handsome engineer met and married the prettiest secretary, Eva Mae Collins. While Roland was a Roman Catholic, Eva was a Methodist at the time. On November 16, 1927, they were married by a priest in the rectory, since mixed marriages were not permitted in the church. A year later on December 21, 1928 their first of five children was born. They established a savings account for this child, which two years later was wiped out along with their own savings because of a bank failure during the Great Depression. Undaunted, Roland continued working while adding three sons. With a sound reputation in the abrasives industry, Roland accepted a higher paying position as technical director at the Precision Grinding Wheel Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1936.
While living in a corner row house on Friendship Street in Mayfair, the two oldest children attended Saint Mathew's School. Eva gave birth to the youngest of her five children at the age of forty. Roland had always provided his wife with domestic help, and when Harold was born he hired a new maid. Catherine Chapman, an immigrant from Scotland, helped with cooking, laundry, cleaning, and raising the children from1938 until 1956. When the family moved into a new brick and stone duplex on Hartel Street in 1938, Catherine came with the family. She lived with two sisters on Shelmire Street, about a mile away and walked this distance every day.
Politically conservative, Roland voted Republican and listened to right wing news commentators such as Father Coughlin and Gabriel Heater during the Roosevelt years. He disliked Franklin Roosevelt, socialists and communists. Even though many families bought television sets after World War II, he thought it would interfere with his children's study time. He must have been the last person in the neighborhood to own a TV. In later years he enjoyed watching sports on the tube. He did help his children with their homework, especially when algebra or trigonometry was their problem. Those subjects were so easy for the engineer.
Roland and Eva went to movies and restaurants once a week while Catherine watched the rowdy children. He also paid attention to the children, taking them ice skating and fishing for crabs in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. He bought baseball gloves to play catch with the boys, and provided them with a set of weights and boxing gloves. Although vacationing with children is no vacation, he managed to take the gang to Wildwood, Seaside Heights, Ocean City, N.J. and once to the Pocono Mountains to rough it in a cabin. On the other hand he did not take the family to visit our relatives very often.
During the second world war it was patriotic to grow vegetables in a victory garden. Roland and the oldest child spaded up a plot in the vacant lot behind the house and grew some prize zucchini, radishes, tomatoes, green beans and figs. In winter he buried the fig tree while it was young to keep it from freezing.
Having earned his own way through two universities, the engineer did not wish the same on his offspring. Generously he sent them to private schools and saw them all through college.
A huge emotional jolt shook Roland shortly after a testimonial praising his work at Precision. The boss abolished his job and hired a fellow immigrant crony. Unemployment at age 57 with five children to educate was no joke. He began a desperate search for new employment by contacting his acquaintances in the industry. Finally he hired on at a reduced salary at the Macklin Company in Jackson, Michigan. The job loss was not the only loss. The three oldest children did not move to Michigan. Three of them got Married in 1956 and 1957. Roland went alone while Eva remained behind for three months to sell the house and join him in the empty nest.
He liked animals and had many pets as a child. One of his dogs was a pug. When his own children were young he brought home a stray spitz that he named Whitey. But when that dog died after thirteen years, he never owned another pet out of deference to his wife. He did, however, feed the squirrels outside his house in Jackson.
After more than forty years in the abrasives industry, he retired in 1965. He began receiving Social Security in January 1966 but continued to do consulting work which involved travel. Although his hobby was an unstressful one of watch repairing, he had always been a handyman. Instead of hiring someone to re-roof his garage, Roland hauled the heavy bundles of roof tiles up a ladder and did the job himself at the cost of heart failure. Although he recovered, his heart was damaged. Several years later in December he seemed to have bronchitis, but it was the failing heart's inability to clear the lungs. The weak heart abetted by an aneurysm caused his death on December 20, 1971 at the age of 72. He had upgraded the house with new siding, a new furnace and copper plumbing. By the purchase of stocks and bonds together with savings accounts, Roland was able to build a nest egg which would support Eva after his death.
Roland had blue eyes and still retained much of his one-time black wavey hair when he died. He was not a tall man but physically well proportioned and strong. His height never reached more than five feet eight inches, and he weighed in at about one hundred and forty-five pounds at his heaviest.
Twenty years after his burial in Saint John's Cemetery
in Jackson, Michigan, Eva joined him in the plot next to his with a matching
pink granite headstone.