Thomas Clark
Thomas Clark came to Saranac Lake from New York City to cure for T.B. in 1938.
In 1987 Ree Rickard conducted oral interviews, including one with Thomas Clark. To read all of her interviews, click here [Rickard Oral History Interviews]
Thomas Clark of New York City conversed in the guest room of the Carmelite Monastery in Saranac Lake. This was his first return visit to Saranac in almost half a century, and he was giving a spiritual retreat to the nuns. Bespectacled, long and lanky, he exudes a curious aura of warmth and intellectualism. He is the author of several books on peace and justice issues and books that relate spirituality and psychological development. The latest title, From Image to Likeness, concerns the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test. He also conducts workshops on that subject. Father Clark’s raspy voice gives authenticity to his bout with the tuberculosis that affected his larynx.
WHEN DID YOU CURE IN SARANAC LAKE?
In the spring of ’38, when I was in my junior year at St. Peter’s College in New Jersey. I was first sent for three months to Bellevue Hospital in New York to begin artificial pneumothorax or “pneumo” treatments. This was a process and effective at the time. A surgical injection of air was pushed into the pleural cavity to collapse the diseased lung and immobilize it temporarily while healing took place. This was done three times a week at first and then tapered off by the end of a year to twice a month. It was usually done in the patient’s room and wasn’t too uncomfortable. After Bellevue, my brother and I took the night train from New York, and I arrived in Saranac Lake to live in a cure cottage for the next ten months to continue with pneumo treatments and have bed rest and fresh air.
DID YOU THINK YOU MIGHT DIE?
No, but my Dad did. He was an Irish immigrant and at that time as soon as you said the word, “tuberculosis”, (the Irish called it “consumption” or “lung fever”}, you thought of the poor survival rate. When the doctor told my father, he wept and really expected the worst.
I was kind of serene about the whole situation. I believe as an introvert, who loved to read, I was well suited to the tranquil life of a patient. There was no pain, just a perpetual feeling of tiredness and a cough. I had been very active in sports, had worked for a newspaper and was going to college, so I was pretty run down. I have always been a tomorrow person and find it hard to live in the present. So in some ways I was feeling detached from the disease.
HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS?
Mainly reading and listening to the radio. Putting together that I felt no pain or anxiety and was introverted, I had a lot of life inside of me that I began to explore. What helped too, to make the time interesting and bearable, was that it was kind of a time of conversion for me. My room was across the hall from a recent Friar of the Atonement. So, having nothing better to do with his time, he sort of evangelized me. At first I was resistant, but pretty soon it took. It was a time of a change of outlook. You might saWy for the first time I put together my own philosophy of life. Prior to that period, I had never read the New Testament or any books of the Bible, for that matter even though I had years of Catholic schooling. I had not decided to become a priest or a Jesuit then, but the seeds of that decision were planted back in Saranac Lake. When I left the village to return home to New York, I just took it easy for a year and a half before returning to school. During that time and in Saranac there was a lot of time for contemplation. As I look back on my time in Saranac Lake, not only was I healed physically but my vocation to the priesthood took shape there.
DID THE FRESH AIR HELP?
Well I’m no scientist but in retrospect there was a certain amount of faith healing involved. You thought it was good so it created a positive expectation. I stayed in a glass enclosed porch where the water in the pitcher froze every night. I arrived in December so was always bundled up with a wool hat, six blankets and even gloves.
WHAT ARE YOIUR MEMORIES OF THE VILLAGE OF SARANAC LAKE?
I never really saw the town as I was in bed most of the time. Toward the end of my stay, we used to go for short walks after meals. The cure cottage was on a hill on the outskirts of the village. We would always joke when going up the hill that the reason we often stopped was to look at the view, but of course, the view was secondary. We needed to catch our breath.
WERE YOU ILL AS A CHILD?
I contracted the flu at five weeks old during the flu epidemic of 1918. I always suspected that it had something to do with my illness later on.
DID YOU HAVE ANY VISITORS?
No. Because of the distance and expense, it was difficult for my family to travel. I did, however, have a daily visit from the world. A dean from my college had given me a subscription to the New York Times. We weren’t in the war yet but you could follow the action in Europe. I remember enjoying the maps.
DO YOU FEEL ANY PHYSICAL EFFECT OF THE ILLNESS?
Well, I had T.B. in one lung and the larynx was also affected. Part of the cure was that I had to whisper to rest the vocal cords. They were scarred and remain that way so I still carry the memory of that period of my life every time I speak. Depending upon whether I’m tired or nervous, it is sometimes more difficult, especially in public speaking, to get the voice out. Sometimes, when speaking, I hear, “What’s he saying?” Now it has become a humorous matter for me that so much of my life as a teacher, preacher and public speaker has been spent using this damaged voice. God writes straight with crooked lines.
WERE THERE ANY LASTING EMOTIONAL SCARS?
I’m sure there must be, but it was an earlier experience that had a more lasting effect. I was one of six boys. My mother had an appendectomy and as a result developed peritonitis and died. I was nine. My oldest brother was fourteen. My mother’s death was devastating to my father… and to all of us. After that my father raised us with the help of housekeepers (poor things!). That loss shaped my earlier life. I’ve sometimes wondered whether my susceptibility to T.B. was somehow tied in with my emotional reaction, both to getting pneumonia at that early age of five weeks and also to losing her. I’ve often speculated about the psychosomatic nature of illness. For example, the voice often betrays hidden anger and fears. Tuberculosis of the larynx was most unusual. I was shy as a boy and tended to keep emotions and the feelings of loss related to my mother’s death bottled up inside. The way we handle emotions will affect how we handle our voice. In thinking about it now, I’d have to say that to some extent my getting R.B. was psychologically significant. When you are curing for T.B. you get into certain patterns. There is no pressure on you and you are encouraged not to exert yourself too much. I have a hunch that some of my psychic patterns today were influenced by that earlier experience. I’d say it hasn’t eliminated a great deal of restlessness I have always had in me. It also relates to stamina. I have a great deal of psychological, physical and social stamina.
DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER FEELINGS ON HOW THIS FORCED CONFINEMENT CHANGED YOUR LIFE?
I did not experience trauma. There are ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, it helped me to find a meaningful life. On the other, it came at a time when I should have been getting rid of shyness and introversion. It put me in a fairly prolonged period of moratorium.
It is interesting that two of the large sanitariums in the area are now prisons – two types of forced confinement.