Clark Shanahan

Clark Shanahan, formerly of Creston, died in Owosso, Michigan, Wednesday, April 22, 2020, at the age of 92.

His death was due to natural causes, unrelated to the coronavirus.

A private burial took place on the family grave site in Henderson, Michigan. A memorial service is planned at a time to be determined.

Clark was born in Creston March 16, 1928, to Alfred and Florance (Wagoner) Shanahan. He was a Kent farmboy during the Great Depression before he came to town to attend Creston High School from which he graduated in 1945. On Feb. 27, 1947, he married the former Jo Ann Kelley, his high school sweetheart.

Following service in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he graduated from Knox College in Illinois, and then the University of Michigan Law School. Clark began his law practice in Durand, Michigan, and at the age of 28 was elected Judge of Probate for Shiawassee County.

After finishing his second term on the Probate Court, he returned to private practice in 1965. He won important cases of local and national prominence. He was especially proud of a case that expanded the statute of limitations for the victims of child sexual abuse.

Clark had a long-time interest in the welfare of persons experiencing mental illness. He became a board member, then president, of the Michigan Mental Society (now the Mental Health Association in Michigan). He was involved in the passage of Michigan’s community mental health legislation. During his second term, he successfully engaged the Board of Supervisors — as it was then called — to create the state’s first community mental health authority. As Special Counsel to the legislative committee investigating the troubled Ionia State Hospital, he presided over the closing of that hospital and the creation of Michigan’s forensic center, accompanied by major revisions of the state’s criminal law pertaining to people experiencing mental illness.

He served three governors on Michigan’s Youth Commission.

The generosity and compassion that Clark had in the public sphere was more than matched in the private one. He lifted many a person who was down, up.

Clark was predeceased by his parents; his wife of 63 years Jo Ann; and his brother Keith. His survivors include children: Kathleen Shanahan (Joseph Hlavacek) of Wichita, Kansas, Thomas Shanahan (Mariann Watson) of Flint, Michigan, Michael (Marie-Hélène) Shanahan of Oak Park, Illinois, Matthew Shanahan (Carla Weiler), also of Oak Park, Illinois, Susan (Jeffrey) Phillips of Owosso, Michigan; foster daughter Erja (Jorma) Vaajoki of Helsinki, Finland; and 11 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.