Clarence Ray Upshaw

Clarence Ray Upshaw died in Parkersburg on September 6, 2026. He was 86. Born in Parkersburg on February 22, 1940, into a Appalachian household that treated work as a language. He learned early that a day is something you finish, not something you wait for. He turned hours into checks that fed hollows. An adding-machine ribbon saved for lean months; miners trusted his math more than rumor. Colleagues still mention an adding-machine ribbon he saved. He married Imogene in 1963. They kept a house that stayed modest when the neighborhood did not. They raised a son through public schools and ordinary weather. After Imogene died in 2019, he kept the routines that still made sense: the walk, the garden, the Sunday call. Neighbors remember a wave from the driveway that meant you were seen. He liked early mornings before the heat or the noise. He died in Parkersburg, among streets he never needed to explain. The chair by the window still holds the shape of a habit.