Family mourns loss of big-hearted man who died in car crash
Bernard Clarke’s German shepherd, Bear, still sits by the door, waiting for his owner who will never come home.
“He would do anything for anybody and he loved animals. Bear worshipped Bernie, that dog did,” said Bernice Schofield, 89, Clarke’s grandmother.
Clarke died following a rollover on Highway 417 near Woodroffe Avenue on Sunday. His car flipped multiple times, according to Ottawa Fire Services, and he was taken to the trauma centre where he later died. Clarke was 42. The news of Clarke’s death has been devastating for his family and loved ones. Schofield was very close to her grandson and raised him when he was younger.
“We almost have the same birthday — except for a few days,” Schofield said.
“We called him Bernard and my name’s Bernice and I laughed and thought — he’s the first one to be named after a grandmother instead of a grandfather.”
Clarke has been living with her for the past decade. He had a hard life and fell in with the wrong crowd, said Schofield, but was getting his life together.
“Bernie’s parents divorced early and my husband and I looked after him. My husband died early and Bernie missed him. He was never quite the same after,” Schofield said.
“He got in trouble doing things he shouldn’t have, but that was all over. He just wanted someone to acknowledge him. He wanted to be somebody.”
Clarke was turning his life around by working out, said Schofield.
“He had a lot of personal demons but he fought them by going to the gym,” said Cheri Potter, 51, who lives in Rochester, N.Y.
Potter said she and Clarke had met online a few years ago and dated long-distance for a year and a half. She said Clarke was one of the strongest people she had ever met.
“One of his dreams was to do competitions and be on a stage to compete for body-building, and then I was going to move up there and we were going to open a gym together,” she said.
“His house where he lived with his grandmother and his aunt burned down. He went through hell getting that rebuilt — fought with the insurance company, but it got done because of him.”
The house, which burned down in August 2014, sustained about $475,000 in damage, according to a Citizen article written at the time.
Schofield, Clarke’s aunt and Clarke had been living in the newly-rebuilt house, in the city’s west end, for two years thanks to Clarke’s efforts.
“He was good to me. I loved him. I wanted to see him succeed at what he wanted to do,” Schofield said.