Helen Clark retires after more than two decades at VFW

Helen Clark is making her second attempt at retiring as manager of the bar at VFW Post 276 in Whitefish, but this time she is confident she’ll stay retired.

Clark worked 24 years as manager there. She retired the first time in 2005, but was asked to help out from her home and was officially hired again as manager in 2009.

“I told them I’m going to change my telephone number and lock the door to my house,” she says with a laugh. But with her daughter, Cindy, as the new manager, she feels confident she’ll stay retired this time.

Clark, 74, enjoyed her time at the VFW. Whether it was working with the members, helping out veterans, or the time she spent volunteering with the VFW Ladies Auxiliary.

“They’re a good bunch,” she said. “They’re always involved in helping veterans.”

Clark grew up in Havre, where her father worked for the Great Northern Railway. She spent many weekends the 5,000-acre family ranch next to Duck Lake. The Noffsinger family ran the Park Saddle Horse Company, which took tourists on horseback trips into Glacier National Park.

“I learned to swim and ice skate on Duck Lake,” she said.

She recalls riding the train, while lining all her dolls up on the seat next to her, from Havre to the ranch to visit her grandparents.

Clark eventually settled in Whitefish and worked as manager at the Viking Lodge until it closed. She later went to work at the VFW and joined the Ladies Auxiliary at the insistence of her friend Irene Hansen.

Clark served as president of the local auxiliary and was district president. She started the Junior Girls program as part of the auxiliary.

Connections to Clark’s family history have found her through the years at the VFW.

Someone once brought her a picture of a painting hanging in a Bozeman museum. The painting named “George Noffsinger” after her father, depicted a cowboy in a red shirt and was created by Winold Reiss, an artist who is known for his paintings of the West that were used in advertising for the Great Northern Railway. Clark was later able to see the painting while it was on display in Kalispell.

Another time someone came in with a saddle bearing the family’s brand. Clark bought the saddle and later found it had the initials on the underside that indicated the saddle was one of two made specifically for the Noffsinger family.

She also met her husband, Jack Clark, while working New Year’s Eve at the VFW. A country western band was playing that night, and while Helen was behind the bar doing dishes, a man takes her onto the dance floor.

“I thought ‘I like this guy, he can dance,’” she said “We had four dances and he took me back to the bar and left. Three months later he asked me out to dinner.”

When she started at the VFW, she was managing the bar, bartending five full shifts per week and doing the bookkeeping.

“As the years progressed a few of those things were knocked off the list,” she said, but she would still get behind the bar to do the dishes.

Clark didn’t like cussing in her bar, so she implemented a card that allowed cussing at a cost of $5 and a cussing jar that required donations from those that got caught. The money was donated to the VFW National Home for Children, which supports veterans and their families.

There are also the duck and squirrel figurines that sit outside her office. Both were decorated in costumes for the different holidays and seasons.

“People would check to see how they were dressed even before they would go get their drink,” she said.