Clarence Shirley Alexander, 83 of Uriah, Alabama, and a former resident of Jena, passed away on Saturday, night April 7, 2018 at his residence. His residence was just down the road from where he was born at Palmers’ Crossing in a shotgun house on Friday, August 24, 1934. The doctor came from Uriah in a horse drawn buggy to deliver him. His mother and father were quite certain he would be a girl and they would name the child Shirley. The baby turned out to be a boy so they named him Clarence Shirley Alexander. All of his life he was known to his family and close friends as Shirley. He died close by where he was born. In the intervening years he traveled far and wide. He began school in Alabama and later graduated from Jena High School in 1952. He attended Louisiana Tech in Ruston, before enlisting in the United States Navy. He was serving off the Korean coast when the Armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. He and his older brother William were permitted to serve on the same ship after his parents signed the consent required by the Navy. While in the Navy he sailed to Hawaii, The Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and many other ports in the Pacific. While in the Navy he met and later married Joyce Eberhardt of South Gate, California. He returned to Louisiana in the latter half of the 1960s and began working with his father and brothers in the stump wood business. They produced over a thousand tons of pine stumps per week for many years. They worked on large tracts of land in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and many others. After retiring to the family home in Monroe County, Alabama he entered college later in life and graduated from Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama in 2000. He entered a master’s program in sociology at the University of Alabama. He took a leave from that program to go on a mission trip with his wife for their church to New Zealand. He was a member of The Church of Latter Day Saints in Goodway, AL. Services were held at 11 a.m., Wednesday, April 11, at The Church of Latter Day Saints in Goodway, AL with Greg Fralick officiating. Interment followed at Mineola Cemetery under direction of Johnson Funeral Home of Monroeville, AL. He was preceded in death by his parents, William Medsker and Dottie Turk Alexander; his first wife, Joyce E. Alexander; two brothers, William V. Alexander and Glenn C. Alexander; and his sister, Mildred “Peggy” Koon Alexander. Survivors include his wife, Shirley Frances Wiggins Alexander of Uriah, AL; two sons, Bruce Todd Alexander of Uriah, AL and Jeffrey Shawn Alexander of Wetupka, AL; two daughters, Sherry Dawn Alexander of Anniston, AL and Linda Gail Wilson of Plano, TX; one brother, Clifford Alexander of Roswell, GA; one sister, Frances Miller of Albany, GA; one grandson, Justin Dailey of Grady, AL; one granddaughter, Michelle Joyce; one great granddaughter, Kayla Joyce; and great grandson, Tyler Joyce.
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