Richard A. Young

Richard A. Young passed away April 2, 2005 at the age of 85. He was born July 18, 1919 to Mary Leona Johnson Young and Howard Augustus Young at their home in Ames, Iowa. Howard was a barber in Ames all his life and Mary was a tailor, housekeeper and babysitter.

Richard’s first job was digging dandelions for five cents a bushel. He also swept his father’s barbershop and stocked produce in a grocery store. At the age of twelve, he started delivering newspapers and magazines and won a contest in 1933 by acquiring new subscribers to the Des Moines Register and Tribune. The prize was a one-half hour ride over Ames in an autogyro. Also in 1933, he and a friend hitch-hiked to the Chicago World’s Exposition, sleeping in fields in sleeping bags along the way.

Starting at age fifteen, he worked in house construction including plumbing and wiring, but mostly concrete and masonry. He poured basements, sidewalks, and driveways before the age of Ready-Mix, so it was all mixed on the job site.

He graduated from Ames High School in 1937 and started Pre-Med at Iowa State University that fall. He graduated from ISU in 1940 and started medical school at the University of Iowa. He went to the U of I year-round and graduated in October 1943. He continued construction work all through college and medical school.

He moved to Des Moines to intern at the Methodist Hospital, specializing in anesthesiology and family practice, where he met Betty Lou Olson, of Goldfield, Iowa who was in nursing at Methodist Hospital. They married January 28, 1945 on her family farm outside of Goldfield. To this union two daughters and a son were born.

He practiced medicine in Des Moines until April 1, 1947 when they moved to Clarion. He and fellow University of Iowa graduate Robert Eaton bought out the practice of Dr’s. Tompkins and Walker on Central Avenue.

He served in the Korean War from July 1952 to July 1954, earning a fellowship in Psychology at Fort Sam Houston, and then was stationed at Fort Dix where he served in the mental health field.

In 1949, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Eaton spear-headed the campaign to build a modern hospital in Clarion. This resulted in the Clarion Community Memorial Hospital being built in November 1951.

The practice, now including Dr. Charles Hawkins and Dr. Robert McCool, moved to their new clinic on First Street S.E. in 1956.

Dr. Young retired for the first time in 1984 when he was sixty-five. That retirement lasted less than a year. He was called back to open and run two satellite clinics in Kanawha and Dows. He retired a second time at age seventy-five. He was called back to work again to take over the clinic in Eagle Grove and incorporated it into the Clarion Clinic.

He was always interested in Clarion and its citizens. He was proud of his work on planning and building the gazebo, his work on restoring the Rock Island Depot, and the development and growth of the Clarion Clinic and the hospital.

He was also proud of the cabin he built, with the help of many good friends, in Arkansas. He loved going there, sitting on the deck, watching birds and listening to the music.

When asked last year what made him proudest in his life, he responded by saying, “I did the best I could. I have high regard for Clarion and the surrounding communities and all the people I have been privileged to meet.”

His parents and his sister, Gwen Ethington, preceded him in death.

He is survived by his wife Betty Lou of Clarion; daughter, Sally Smith of Dodge Center, Minnesota; daughter, Kathleen (Robert) Walton of Englewood, Colorado, and his son, John (Dianne) Young of Minnetonka, Minnesota. Five grandchildren, Heather Smith, Jennifer Struck, John Walton, Ian Richard Young, and Sean Young and one great-granddaughter, Sabrina Thompson also survive him.