"Alfred Hyde Clarke, aged thirty-eight, scion of one of Otsego county's first families, shot himself with a .38 caliber revolver at his home in Cherry Valley at about 2:35 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Death was instantaneous. His wife, prostrated by the deed, was removed to the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital at Cooperstown. Dr. F. E. Bolt of Worcester, coroner, gave a verdict of death by suicide following an investigation. Funeral services were held at 12 o'clock Tuesday with the Rev. Jackson L. Cole, rector of Christ Church of Cooperstown officiating and interment was made in Lakewood cemetery. Mr. Clarke had been in ill health for some time and recently had been despondent and nervous. He was returned to Otsego county from Wyoming in August and moved to Cherry Valley. On several occasions he had threatened to take his own life and when his wife heard the pistol shot from his bedroom she immediately feared the worst. Dr. Lucien Myer of Cherry Valley was called and in his absence Police Justice Almond Cramer and George Walton arrived at the scene of the shooting. They found Clarke's body lying face downward on the floor of his bedroom. He had evidently placed the gun in his mouth before pulling the trigger, the bullet having come through the top of his head and lodging in the ceiling of the room ... Alfred Hyde Clarke was the second son of the late George Hyde Clarke and Mary Gale Carter Clarke of Hyde Hall on Otsego Lake. He was born in Albany December 31, 1898, and spent his boyhood at Hyde Hall where his early education was received from a private tutor. He attended St. Paul's school at Concord, N. H., for his preparatory course for entrance to Princeton University. He was graduated from Princeton in 1921 with a degree of civil engineer. During the World War, he was enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training course at Princeton ... He was married July 17, 1935, in Cody, Wyo., to Miss Marjorie Cowles, a native of Georgia. Surviving are his widow, one brother, George Hyde Clarke of Hyde Hall, a sister, Mrs. Arthur Osgood Choate, of Pleasantville." [The Freeman's Journal (Cooperstown, NY), Oct. 14, 1936, Page 4]