John Joseph Clarke was born October 5, 1929, in Detroit, Michigan. He attended primary school at Sacred Heart Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, St. Martin's in Detroit, Michigan, and St. Clare of Montefalco in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. After graduating from St. Paul's High School in Gross Pointe Farms, Michigan, he worked with his father's municipal gardening service in Detroit until October 1948, when he began his postulancy as a Dominican cooperator brother at St. Thomas Aquinas Priory in River Forest, Illinois. He entered the novitiate in River Forest on April 2, 1949 and took Richard as his religious name.

Shortly after his first profession on April 3, 1950, Brother Richard was assigned to the maintenance staff at St. Pius V Priory in Chicago. There his talent for printing procedures soon led him to develop the small print shop at the Shrine of St. Jude offices into a highly professional service for helping to spread the prayer apostolate of the Shrine throughout the world.

Post-Vatican II changes in the Church and the Order affected Brother Richard deeply, and in 1970, he asked for a temporary leave from his assigned duties to assess his future as a Dominican brother. While on leave, he spent time with close relatives in Ireland. There he suffered a heart attack that required a lengthy period of careful treatment to restore his health.

After returning to the States and the Province, Brother Richard asked to be assigned to the Vicariate of Nigeria where he could use his skills as a printer while training other in the same field. Since political difficulties at that time sharply restricted the number of Nigeria visas granted to United States citizens, he joined three other members of the Province in Kumasi, Ghana, in January 1971, where he worked for Bishop Peter Sarpong to expand the work of the Catholic Mission Press for the Diocese of Kumasi. In 1975, he was able to join the Dominican Community in Ibadan, Nigeria, while working for the Claverian Press and helping with the maintenance needs of the priory.

While on stateside quies in 1979, Brother Richard went to the House of Affirmation in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, to take advantage of special programs for spiritual renewal. To retain his resident visa for Nigeria, he returned to Ibadan in August 1979, but was rea signed to St. Pius V Priory in Chicago in January 1980. In May 1980, he went back to the House of Affirmation for an extended renewal program while he lived with the Eastern Dominican Community at St. Stephen's Priory in Dover, Massachusetts. Shortly after returning to Dover from a Christmas visit with his family in Detroit, Brother Richard was stricken with a heart attack On Tuesday, December 30, while in the cardiac intensive care unit at Leonard Morse Hospital, a second severe attack ended his life. His body was brought back to Chicago for funeral services at St. Pius V Church and for burial in All Saints Cemetery, Des Plaines, Illinois, on January 3. At the time of his death, he hoped one day to be able to resume the apostolate he loved best at the Mission Press in Ghana.