Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Clarence Stave Papers
Date(s)
Extent
6 boxes
(2.7 cubic feet)
Name of creator
Biographical history
Clarence Stave was a popular baseball umpire in Tacoma’s City League, officiating for almost 30 years. His father Ole was a Norwegian immigrant, his mother Ida came from Sweden, and he was born in Tacoma in 1897. He left school after the eighth grade and was 15 when he began employment at the Northern Pacific Railway Company as a messenger (1, 2). He was promoted to clerk and then shop timekeeper before leaving in 1918 to seek employment with the F.S.Harmon Manufacturing Co. (2, 3). There he worked his way up from stockman to clerk to furniture salesman, eventually moving to Sears, Roebuck and Co. where he remained selling furniture and appliances until his retirement in the early 1960s (3).
His life outside work included performing; he appeared at the Liberty Theater on amateur night, and with his wife was featured in a benefit for shopmen called “The Moonshiner’s Daughter” (4,5). He began as an umpire for City League baseball in 1924, and he was considered the first and favorite choice to officiate the City League games and others (6). He was usually the only official present and would announce the games as well as call them, adding in humorous quips and minor skits to enliven the action. Audiences came in order to see him as well as the game (7).
He had two sons, Clifford L. and James R. with his first wife. He married his second wife Lillian Shonberg in 1942 and she and his sons survived him when he died in 1973 (8).
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
Includes correspondence, performance programs, and documentation related to Stave's employment with Sears, Roebuck and Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company in Tacoma. Also included are scrapbooks containing clippings, ticket stubs, business cards, brochures, menus, and other ephemera.