Celebration of a man who epitomized the "Greatest Generation"

Born on the fourth of July 1920 in Boone Iowa, Jack Paul Clabaugh was an American success story. After the death of his mother at age 7 he and his 6 siblings were sent by his father to farms across the State of Iowa to live and work.  Mr. Clabaugh was grateful for the life experiences provided by the farm and his foster parents and developed a firm love of the land and country from them.  Despite these humble beginnings he was ambitious, and left the farm to complete high school. This was a rare feat in depression-era rural Iowa.  He supported himself through high school as a farm laborer, paper boy, milk man, grocery stock boy, and paper boy bike rental kingpin. Immediately upon graduation, he secured enlistment in the United States Navy.  This was not an easy feat during the Great Depression (1938).  Mr. Clabaugh was appreciative of his new job.  He said of that first day after enlistment: “Many of the other boys who enlisted had tears from leaving their loved ones but I had tears of absolute joy. It was the first time in my life I had two pairs of clean clothes and three square meals”.  After basic training in Virginia he was briefly stationed in San Diego California in 1939.  There he met two of his many enduring loves loves: Vellah Mae Kelly, a native San Diegan and descendent of one of San Diego’s first families (the Machado and Silvas Family), and the paradisiacal landscape and climate of pre-WWII San Diego.  As if it couldn’t get much better, seaman Clabaugh was to be stationed in another corner of Paradise: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Although the climate and scenery had its charms, world events changed the context.  During the bombings Mr. Clabaugh was stationed on the USS Whitney a destroyer tender that was not a primary target. Clabaugh, trained as a firefighter and volunteered to fight fires on the USS West Virginia. After Pearl Harbor, he spent the remainder of World War II in the Pacific working in the foundry of the USS Whitney (and later USS Ajax) building parts to repair warships. In the foundry he and his team were responsible for casting the stars (with their own silver coins) for Admiral Halsey when he became a three-star Admiral (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/Jun/07/stars-admiral/).

After the war Mr. Clabaugh returned to San Diego to marry Vellah Mae, achieve the rank of Master Chief, and travel the US recruiting sailors until his retirement from the Navy in 1958. Upon retirement he brought his family back to San Diego and “returned to the land” by starting a Landscape Construction Business. His company later merged into Western-Interstate Landscaping where he was a sales manager.  With the 1950s development boom in San Diego he said “there was no selling involved, everyone wanted their lawn and picket fence”.  Later, Clabaugh started a real estate company and semi-retired at the ripe age of 50.  Jack Clabaugh spent the next seventeen years traveling the United States by motorhome with his wife and enjoying his daughter Nancy and her family.  After Vellah Mae’s death in 1987 he spent many happy years traveling with and loving his second wife Elaine Stodelle-Clabaugh and her family who was with him until the end of his life on July 18, 2013.  Jack was 93-years old and lived a full, honorable, and loving life.

Mr. Clabaugh is survived by his wife Elaine Stodelle-Clabaugh and her family Kayce and husband Keith, their children Kirstee and Kale and Stephen and wife Diane, their children Travis, Scott, and Jared, and great grandchildren Tess and Braden, and his daughter and son-in-law Nancy and Juan Banales, Grandchildren Darren and Kim Miller-Smith, Kevin and Tiffany Tucker-Smith, Andre Banales, and Chelsea Banales, and great grandchildren Chandler Smith, Oliver Jack Smith, Jack Smith, and Libby Smith.