Henry Evans Clay Johnson ’36

Clay died Apr. 24, 2001, at his Lookout Mountain, Tenn., home. He was 89. A graduate of the Hotchkiss School, at Princeton he was a member of Cap and Gown. He left Princeton at the end of his sophomore year.

During WWII he served three years in Europe as a Navy lieutenant commander. Clay spent his business career with Interstate Life and Accident Insurance Co. He joined the company in 1933 and became president in 1946 succeeding his father. Interstate merged with Gulf United Corp. in 1980, and Clay retired in 1984 as a director and chair of the executive committee.

He was president of the Hamilton County Memorial Hospital Assn. from 1946-84, and the cancer center there bears his name.

He was married to Betty Mead Smartt, who died in 1980. Clay is survived by his wife, Gene Beasley Johnson, daughters Barbara Prickett and Elizabeth Patton, son H. Clay Jr., seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The Class of 1936