Clark, Gregory, 1892-1977 : Gregory Clark was born 25 September 1892 in Toronto, the son of Joseph Thomas Clark and Sarah Louisa Greig. He attended Harbord Collegiate Institute and did two years at the University of Toronto but did not graduate. In 1912, he began working as a reporter for the "Toronto Daily Star" where his father was the editor. Clark joined the Canadian Army in 1916 as an officer and married Helen Scott Murray on 15 August 1916, just days before his departure overseas for active service. He took part in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917, with the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles, D company. Though a junior lieutenant, by the end of the battle he had assumed command of the company because of the heavy casualties among its officers. He received the Military Cross for his part in the battle.
Clark returned from overseas in October 1918 with the rank of major but was not discharged until February 1919 when he resumed work with the "Toronto Star". He gave up daily reporting, however, to write for the "Star Weekly". At his instigation, Jimmie Frise joined the "Star Weekly" shortly afterward as a cartoonist and illustrator, beginning a collaboration that lasted almost thirty years. As the only full-time writer for the "Weekly", often writing much of the issue, Clark consciously decided to develop his own personal style telling human interest stories from a gentle, humorous perspective and writing pieces which featured his own interests in nature, fishing and outdoors life. Circulation of the "Weekly" rose from 68,000 to over 100,000 within a few years and established the Clark-Frise team in Canadian journalism. During the early 1920s Clark met Ernest Hemingway with whom he shared common interests in fishing and hunting, and helped him get started writing for the "Toronto Star". The publication in the 1930s of the first two of many books of his stories and columns, "Which We Did" (Toronto: Reginald Saunders, 1936) and "So What?" (Toronto: Reginald Saunders, 1937), further established Clark's reputation as a storyteller.
The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw his services again in demand by the "Daily Star" as a war correspondent. He covered the disembarkation of Canadian troops at the end of that year for England, and went overseas to cover the evacuation of Dunkirk, the Canadian Army in England (flying over with Mackenzie King on one occasion), and the invasion of Italy. For this work, he received the Order of the British Empire in 1946. After suffering the loss of their eldest son James Murray Clark during the war, Clark felt he needed to spend more time with his wife and family and more independence in his work. He left the "Star" in September 1945 to do radio broadcasting but continued to write the weekly "Jim-Greg" features for the "Star Weekly". He completed the break with the "Toronto Star" at the end of 1946 when he and Jimmie Frise accepted an offer from the "Montreal Standard". Frise died in 1948 ending their memorable collaboration but Clark stayed with the "Standard" until 1951 when it became "Weekend Magazine". He continued to write shorter features for "Weekend Magazine" into the 1970s that, along with his syndicated daily column the "Packsack" appearing in over twenty papers nationwide, cemented his reputation as one of Canada's best-loved storytellers. The circulation of "Weekend Magazine" rose to over 2 million, well surpassing that of its rival "Star Weekly". In addition to collections of his columns, he also published books on fishing and short stories. Many awards and honours came to him in his later years. He won the Leacock Medal for Humour in 1965; was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1967; and was elected to the Canadian Fishing Hall of Fame in 1976. The University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario bestowed honorary doctorates upon him. Gregory Clark died 4 February 1977.
