Necrology

Clarence “Bob” Robert Clements '49

Jul. 5, 1925-Oct. 21, 2023

Clarence “Bob” Robert Clements ’49 died on Oct. 21, 2023, in San Francisco. Born on July 5, 1925, in Jersey City, N.J., by September 1943 he had completed his first two years of high school at Hastings High School in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., and a third year at Henry Snyder High School in Jersey City. Drafted into the Army Air Corps in October 1943, he was initially assigned to the College Training Detachment as an airman. After completing navigator’s training that included two courses at Western Reserve University, he was subsequently awarded a “War Time Diploma” retroactively by his high school. As an Air Corps navigator, he flew combat missions in a B-29 Bomber.

Honorably discharged in March 1946 with the rank of first lieutenant, Bob began his studies at Hamilton that summer. He became a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity and majored in mathematics and physics. Track was his principal sport, and he was a member of the track team all three years he was on the Hill, serving as captain in his final year. He played end on the football team in his junior and senior years, during which time he was also in the Chess Club. Bob was elected class vice president his senior year and concurrently served on the Student Council.

He also played chess with Dean Winton Tolles. In the course of one game, Dean Tolles told Bob that he had recently received a letter from the head of the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., asking if he could recommend a student who would accept an appointment to teach mathematics, coach the football team, and live in a dormitory to oversee one cohort of students at the school. Bob took the position.

After teaching at Choate for the 1949-50 academic year, in January 1951 Bob was summoned by the Air Force to return to active duty as a navigator. In September 1952,  he returned to Choate after flying another 55 combat missions over North Korea and being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Force’s highest award in recognition of extraordinary achievement in aerial flight. This time he was not alone: he married Louise Francis on March 21, 1952, in Oradell, N.J. They had two daughters.

 As Bob later reported, “when Russia put Sputnik up, our country sent men with mathematical backgrounds to Harvard and other colleges for a year. We spent a year in Cambridge.” On June 11, 1959, Bob earned a master’s degree in education at Harvard, the cost of which was underwritten in part by a scholarship from Phi Delta Kappa, an international organization of educators. 

Degree in hand, he returned to Choate. In 1966, he became chair of the mathematics department and spent part of that summer at the University of Nevada, Reno, continuing to study math with the support of a National Science Foundation fellowship. 

In 1969, after a 20-year affiliation with the Choate School, Bob accepted an appointment at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. His responsibilities were an expansion of those at Choate. He taught mathematics, supervised a dormitory, and coached not only football, but also cross-country, golf, squash, and the intramural basketball and baseball teams. By Exeter’s standards, his golf was not too shabby: he won the faculty golf tournament in 1981.

But amidst all of his extracurricular responsibilities and interests, Bob continued to cultivate a deeper understanding of teaching mathematics. Taking a sabbatical leave in 1974, he pursued additional study in mathematics at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He also led Exeter’s computer operations. In 1988, he was appointed the George Albert Wentworth Professor. Then-principal Stephen G. Kurtz described Bob as “a versatile mathematician who has combined that talent, an understanding of adolescents, and a colorful personality to make himself a consummate teacher.”

Bob’s dedication to his field and to teaching led to his serving as head of the Mathematics Department at the Yale University Summer High School and to offer professional development courses for mathematics teachers at the Summer Institute of the Taft School in Watertown, Conn. Following his retirement in 1990, Bob continued to teach at Exeter when needed during fall semesters and in summer sessions. On one occasion, at a series of workshops for high school math teachers that he conducted under the sponsorship of Phillips Exeter in Phoenix, so grateful were his students that one class established an endowed, four-year scholarship in his name to be granted to a student in need. 

Prior to his retirement, Bob joined Louise in developing a passion for birdwatching. He reported in his 50th reunion yearbook: “My wife and I have done birdwatching on every continent including Antarctica. I have made 17 trips to South America alone and have seen more than 4,500 different species.” In 1998, in company with his brother, he climbed a Peruvian mountain from 9,000 to 12,000 feet to observe 14 different species of hummingbirds.

Bob was a poker player of renown while on the Hill, having learned the game while in the Air Force. He also was something of a tournament bridge player. After a 20-year hiatus, he returned to the bridge table and by 1995 had become a Silver Life Master. Four years later he had accumulated 1,750 master points and had risen to Gold Life Master. But his enthusiasm for the game diminished in time. By his 50th reunion, Bob reported that he was getting bored because he did not “play enough to beat the top players and probably never was good enough.” 

By 2005, Bob and Louise had left New England for The Redwoods, a retirement community in Mill Valley, Calif., to be near their daughter, Joan. This did not, however, prevent their return to New Hampshire for several summers so that he could teach during summer sessions at Exeter. He also tutored Joan’s daughter daily, much as he had tutored his daughter. Bob and Louise continued to travel whenever possible, journeying to Florida, among other destinations, to visit friends he’d made on the Hill.

In their new home, Bob resurrected and ran the community’s bridge club and also founded its poker club. He gave regular presentations on birds, illustrated by slides he had taken. He also was determined to remain fit. During the pandemic, when the community’s gym was closed, he organized clandestine exercise classes in the hallways.

In August 2019, Louise died. Thereafter, Bob carried on but was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He relocated to Petaluma, Calif., for two years before moving to a memory care facility in San Francisco, where he died.

A loyal contributor to the Hamilton Fund, Bob also served on the Alumni Council, as well as on his class’s reunion planning and reunion gift committees.

Clarence Robert Clements was predeceased by his wife and his daughter Eleanor Bellinger. He is survived by his daughter Joan, four grandchildren, and four great- grandchildren.

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