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I n the summer of 1984, Clayton Williams was nominated to the Hall of Fame of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland. He was formally inducted in 1987, the first year he was eligible after his nomination.There he joined Carl Cromwell,Frank Pickrell,and others who had “made outstanding contributions to the development of the petroleum industry or have served as worthy examples to those in the petroleum industry .” Eighteen years later, Claytie would join him in the Hall. Included in the documentation accompanying Clayton’s nomination letter was a long recitation of his personal and professional achievements.The list of accomplishments described a lifetime spent as a successful oilman, rancher, farmer, businessman, civic leader, and historian. But as is often the case in a factual description of a person’s accomplishments in life, the inner man was not described—the man that his family, friends, and colleagues remembered so well—his traits of strength, dignity, honesty and, perhaps above all, his love of family. He was a talented self-taught petroleum geologist, but Williams chose family over a life in the oilfields.Janet Pollard remembers that he was always close by as she was growing up. Every day he came home for lunch and we ran to meet him and give him a hug even though we had just seen him that morning. He would come home with funny stories. I never heard my dad complain about working hard. He looked toward the positive side. He always seemed to look ahead and never back. When I was a tot I remember that I didn’t go to sleep until I held his thumb through the crib, then I would go to sleep. We had a breathtakingly wonderful childhood, Claytie and I. Epilogue 208 Epilogue Daddy was kind of like the 23rd Psalm. He was a shepherd and a mentor and a shelter. Delivering the eulogy at Williams’s funeral service,Dr.O. A.McBrayer told a story about a conversation he had with Clayton in the last days of his life. McBrayer had asked Williams how he would like to be remembered.Taking several seconds to think before replying,Clayton said,“I’d like to be remembered as a kind and caring man.” Claytie and I were very fearless while growing up and part of it was because Daddy wasn’t fearful. He was the kind of mentor who did not tear up your self-respect while he directed you. He didn’t take away your good feelings about yourself. Daddy was not sarcastic. I loved that he did not downgrade us in any way. Nor did I hear him downgrade many other people. I appreciated being raised by two parents who were not critical.To have parents like that is a blessing. Lifelong friend Frank Baker once commented on Williams’s dying wish to be remembered as a kind and caring man. “It was a rare insight, indeed, to realize that being considered a man who was a brother to so many other members of the human race, that being considered caring and kind, meant more in the long run than any of his many accomplishments—to him,to his family, and to all who knew and loved him. “He served his community, county, state, and nation well. He cast a larger-than-life shadow on the world around him, while always coming across to any who knew him as a kind and caring man.” Clayton was buried in an oak casket in Fort Stockton’s East Hill Cemetery alongside his father and mother. He would be joined there four years later by J. C.Chic died in 1998 at the age of 92.At the top of Clayton’s tombstone are the beginning words of the Twenty-third Psalm,“The Lord is My Shepherd,” followed by a simple summing up: “A Native Son, Patriot, Officer World War I, Pioneer Petroleum Engineer, Rancher, Historian, Writer.” At the bottom of the stone is carved “A Kind and Loving Man.” “Be strong and courageous,” my dad said to me. Following him, could I be any less? Daddy, your book is finished. To Daddy with Love, Janet ...

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