[2] After his graduation from the Boys High School, Parson worked several jobs in Brooklyn, first with the Atlantic Chemical Company, then, at age 19, becoming a partner in a chicory importing business.

Parson walked Clarence's daughter, Maysie Gasque, down the aisle at her July 1930 wedding to Roland Robinson (later 1st Baron Martonmere) at St Margaret's Church, Westminster where Princess Mariza Chavchavadze was a bridesmaid.

[1][13] In 1918, Parson bought Shadow Lawn, a colonial, wood-frame structure mansion in West Long Branch, New Jersey (not far from the resort town of Asbury Park),[5] from Joseph B. Greenhut, head of the Siegel-Cooper Company for $800,000 in cash plus a $150,000 mortgage.

[6] The mansion, which was originally built in 1903 for John A. McCall (president of the New York Life Insurance Company), contained fifty-two rooms and was the subject of a $1 million renovation by Parson after he acquired it.

During the 1916 presidential campaign, Greenhut had loaned Shadow Lawn to President Woodrow Wilson, who used the mansion as his Summer White House.

The exterior gardens were by Achille Duchêne and the interior design was crafted by Julian Abele, one of the first professionally trained African American architects in the United States.