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Note: In 1910, four-month-old Clyde (listed as age 5/12), born in Tennessee, was living with his parents and older brother Hermon in District 4 of Claiborne Co., TN. In 1920, the family was still in District 4 and had grown to add sisters Icie and Iva Dell; Clyde was ten, and he attended school that year.
In 1930, twenty-year-old Clyde was in the Quarter Precinct of District 4, living in the home of his father-in-law, David Cook. Ever the rascal, Clyde somehow managed to convince sweet, naive Effie Cook that he and she were the same age when he persuaded her to marry him in 1925. They walked down the road to his grandmother Mildred Reed's house in Caney Valley where they said their vows before his uncle, Rev. Ewin Spradling. Three weeks later, Clyde had his sixteenth birthday which must have sent his nineteen-year-old bride into shock! That was just the first of many such rude awakenings Effie would have to face in her marriage. Clyde definitely proved the old adage "marry in haste; repent in leisure." Besides Clyde, Effie, and their son Mack, Papa Cook had his three other daughters at home. Clyde's occupation was listed as "none," but his eighteen-year-old sister-in-law, Naoma, worked as a laborer, and his fifty-year-old father-in-law was a farmer.
The 1930's brought several changes to the young family including the addition of four more children. Their second son was born in June 1930, two months after the census was taken. Sometime either shortly before or after his birth, Clyde and Effie left Quarter Precinct and moved to Snake Hollow where it is believed that three of the children were born. While there, Effie ran a boardinghouse for eighteen lumberjacks who worked for the government. She was paid for doing the cooking while Clyde worked up on Powell Mountain with them. He owned a team of mules which he used to pull the lumber down the mountain. By January 1938, the family was living in Caney Valley where another baby was born. Times were hard as they were all over the country so in early 1940 before the next baby came along, the family bid farewell to Tennessee and moved to Maryland where Clyde's older brother Hermon had found work during the Depression.
Clyde worked many jobs in order to feed his growing family which included another child by 1942, bringing the total to seven. At first, he worked on dairy farms owned by other people such as Oliver Davis and Judge Harry Webb. During WWII, he worked in a government shipyard where he made a good living checking tools in and out. That job lasted about two years until he was hit by a car one night while walking home after work. His injuries were so severe that he couldn't work for about six months so the church saw to it that his family was fed. That occurred sometime around 1943 or '44. When he was able to return to work, he got a job in Ellicott City at the Doughnut Corporation which was a flour mill where he carried wheat to the grinders. He had that job for almost twenty years until the company moved to Japan. Clyde and Hermon both lost all their profit sharing when the company closed. Their losses were staggering; Clyde lost $50,000.00 while Hermon's loss was $80,000.00. After this setback, Clyde did carpentry work and roofing to make a living.
Sometime around 1954-55, Clyde bought a home on Triadelphia Road near Ellicott City, MD, the first one he ever owned. The property contained a grape arbor and some peach trees as well as the garden they put in. After Effie died, Clyde sold this home and returned to Tennessee where he bought a country store on Old Kentucky Road in Morristown. He owned and operated the store, which he called The Penny Profit, until his death in 1984. The store was a small building, about the size of a typical garage, and it was attached to Clyde's house by the carport inbetween. Two old-fashioned gas pumps sat in front of the store, and the big, bulky, wooden cash register was a thing from the past that delighted the youngsters who were sometimes allowed to ring up a sale. Clyde's grandchildren well remember visits to that store where "Granddaddy" indulged them with all the candy, ice cream, and soda pop their mothers would allow them to consume.
Despite all Clyde's shortcomings, one area where he excelled was his concern for the lost and his ability to point them to Christ. His sister Icie spoke of his ability to draw folks to the altar with his fiery, charismatic preaching. Even as a child, Clyde could preach in a manner that might reduce one to tears. One humorous story recounted by his cousin Etta took place when he and Hermon were still little boys. They had gone to visit their Grandma Spradling who had a portrait on the wall of her daughter who had died young. A tall, straight-backed chair sat directly underneath the picture. Clyde climbed up on that chair and vigorously preached a sermon to the little girl until Hermon cried and pleaded, "Grandma, make him stop!"
Clyde became an ordained Baptist minister who was instrumental in starting churches after he moved to Maryland. In 1941, he and Mack Wilder started Liberty Baptist Church. He pastored that congregation until the mid-1940's when he started New Hope Baptist Church in Glenwood, now a part of the Blue Ridge Association. Around 1952-53, Clyde borrowed money from the Woodbine Bank to buy property in West Friendship to start Sharon Baptist Church where Effie, Hermon, his wife Una, and Jimmy Reed (Clyde and Effie's grandson) are buried. Clyde died in 1984 in Tennessee and was buried in the McNeil Cemetery off of Springdale Rd. outside Tazewell in Claiborne Co., TN.
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