Clarence Ray Hockensmith, born November 8, 1912, in Gallatin, Missouri to Raphael Cameron Hockensmith and Ida Boyer, passed away on February 4, in the Veterans' Hospital in Kansas City at age 95. Clarence married Nina Marceille Peck of Old Elrick, Iowa, on November 28, 1936. They were married more than 65 years when she passed away on June 27, 2002, in Independence. Clarence came to the Kansas City area in 1932 after receiving his early schooling in Oklahoma and Kansas and met his wife at the Tabernacle Baptist Church there. He worked as a pressman at Hall Brothers, now Hallmark, before he joined the United States Army during WWII. He served as a combat infantryman with the 3rd Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded in action near Dessau, Germany, for which he received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He is among those honored at the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. After the war, Clarence worked as a linotype operator at the Kansas City Star for 27 years and retired in 1974. Devoted Christians, he and his wife were members of the First Baptist Church of Independence, Missouri. He was an avid bowler and fisherman and reader of The Spearhead Doughboy. Clarence is survived by his son William and wife Sharon of Dallas, Texas, and son James of Kansas City, four grandsons and their wives, one granddaughter and her husband, eight great grandsons, and two great granddaughters (as of Feb 2008). The funeral was Saturday, February 9, at the First Baptist Church in Independence. Burial was in Newcomer's Floral Hills next to his beloved wife and daughter-in-law Laresa.
Note: Genealogical information on both the Hockensmith line and the Peck line were submitted to the Newcomer's Floral Hills archive.
Obituary published in the Kansas City Star on 2/7/2008.

Other genealogical information:
Clarence Hockensmith was a 7th generation American, which began with the arrival of his great-great-great grandfather, Konrad Hackenschmidt, aboard the Snow Betsie in Philadelphia on 27 August 1739. Konrad was originally from the Palatinate area of South-Central Germany and settled on 110 acres of land near Emmitsburg, Maryland. They were part of a large immigration of southern Germanic people who together formed the original Pennsylvania Dutch (“Deutsch” or German) culture and language.

Clarence’s great-great grandfather Johann George Hockensmith, born 10 May 1741, began a long tradition of Hockensmith service to this country as a lieutenant during the Revolutionary War. Clarence’s grandfather, Caleb, born 16 Feb 1829, had fought for the Union in the Civil War as a private in Company B, 3rd Potomac Home Brigade of the Maryland Infantry.