Mary Elizabeth Clark was born in Farmington, Utah, on 13 March 1873, and as a young girl attended the first Latter-day Saint Primary. She later graduated from the LDS College in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a student at the LDS College she met her future husband, Orrin Orlando Barrus. Following graduation she taught school in a series of Utah communitites, including North Ogden, Tooele, Salt Lake City, Goshen, Provo, and South Bountiful. On 3 February 1897 Mary Elizabeth Clark married Orrin Orlando Barrus in the Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Orlando had recently returned from a 2 and a half year LDS mission to Samoa. Soon after their marriage, the couple settled in Star Valley, Wyoming. Mary taught school periodically while Orlando taught school, worked as a principal for the Afton, Wyoming school, ranched, and farmed. After twelve years of marriage, she and her husband were called to serve an LDS mission to the Catawba Indian Nation in South Carolina where they lived with their family from 1908 to 1910. Following the conclusion of their LDS mission, Mary and Orlando returned to Wyoming where they resumed their professional and work-related activities, and continued to raise their family. In 1922 the family began what was to become an annual tradition. During the winter they relocated to Logan, Utah, where Mary and Orlando volunteered in the Logan, Utah Temple of the LDS Church and their younger children attended local schools. During the spring and summer the family returned to Star Valley where they farmed and ranched. This routine continued for several years until October 1927 when the family lost their Star Valley home to fire. The following spring Mary and Orlando moved to Logan, Utah, and purchased a home. Although Orlando continued to spend summers in Wyoming working the family farm, the family had now settled permanently in Logan, where Mary and Orlando dedicated themselves to their work in the Logan Temple, conducting genealogy work and doing family history research. Active in the eccesiastical organization of the LDS Church, Mary Elizabeth Clark Barrus served in a variety of church positions, including the Sunday School, the Mutual Improvement Association for young adults, and the Primary organization for young children. Orlando died in 1958; Mary died three years later in 1961. Mary and Orlando were the parents of nine children: Leone, Hattie Thelma, Ruth, Zina Cloene, Lera, Sterling Clark, Orlando Clark, Thayer, and Merle. Orlando Clark Barrus (1901-1922) died while rescuing drowning victims while serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Southern States Mission.
From the guide to the Mary Elizabeth Clark Barrus papers, 1897-1961, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)
