Margaret Anne Clark (Neé Paradine)

Margaret Anne Clark (Neé Paradine) was born on November 6, 1935 in London, England. Her parents were Charles George Paradine and Annie Paradine (Neé Stephenson). Her younger brother, Chris, was born in 1937.

During WWII, Margaret and her brother spent part of the war evacuated to the countryside outside London and part of the war living at home with their parents in Bromley, Kent. When at home, she and her brother slept in a Harry Potter closet under the stairs for protection from bombing raids.

Margaret attended Bromley High School in Kent, England starting in September 1946 and graduated as an Old Girl in July 1953.

Margaret attended Kings College in London, England and completed a BSc Math in June 1957. She went on to obtain a teaching certificate from Cambridge University in June 1958.

One of the first trips she took as a young woman was to travel to Rome, Italy with friends for the 1960 Olympics.

In 1962, Margaret moved to Montreux, Switzerland to teach mathematics at Institut Monte Rosa, an international boarding school. At Monte Rosa she met fellow teacher Bernard Clark and they were married at Villeneuve, Switzerland on April 13, 1964.

The newlyweds sailed to Canada, picked up their new Volvo in Montreal, Quebec, and drove across Canada in the summer of 1964. As she always like to relate, she had her honeymoon in a tent. Margaret and Bernard’s cross-country journey ended in Mill Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia where she taught at St. Margaret’s School for Girls. At Mill Bay, Margaret met one of her lifelong friends, Lynn Fraser.

In September 1965, Margaret and her husband moved to Burnaby, British Columbia where they lived on Rochester Street so that Bernard could attend Simon Fraser University, which had just opened.

On November 2, 1965, Margaret gave birth to a daughter, Penelope Anne Clark, at Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster, British Columbia. Her son, Adrian Stephen Clark, was born at Royal Columbian Hospital in March 1967.

The family moved to Northfield, Vermont, USA in June 1968 where Bernard had a teaching job at Norwich University. The family travelled by train across Canada. After living in faculty housing, Margaret and Bernard purchased a colonial home built in 1854 (“the blue house”) on Union Brook Road. The house came with two cats, Bucky and Snowball, and buckets for making maple syrup.

Margaret spent these years in Vermont raising her two children, cross-country skiing in winter and hiking and more camping in the summer. Margaret also taught mathematics part-time at Norwich University. During this time, Margaret was also a very accomplished seamstress and dressmaker. Among other garments, she sewed militiamen uniforms for the Bicentennial Parade. The parents, remaining very British, dressed Adrian in a three-cornered hat and he went as Benedict Arnold. Margaret also had a substantial vegetable garden at this time of her life and experimented with preserving foods. Probably because she missed her own mother, Margaret befriended two elderly women who lived nearby whom she visited regularly and helped them out in any way she could. A very patient and practical person, Margaret always looked out for and assisted people around her to the best of her ability. Margaret fondly remembered her years living in Northfield as some of the happiest days of her life.

The family moved from Vermont and with stops in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Rochester, NY, and after Penelope and Adrian went to college, Margaret settled with her husband in Elmira, NY in a side-by-side duplex home. At this time, Margaret taught mathematics at both Elmira College and Ithaca College. Margaret also upgraded her education at this time and she and her son, Adrian, were both students at SUNY Binghamton for a short time. They rented out the second home in Elmira and their best and longest-staying tenants were two retired nuns from a local convent. They made good use of the home, but not of the at-home bar in the basement, which according to local lore was a speakeasy during the Prohibition Era. During these years, Margaret traveled with her husband to numerous countries around the world including many happy trips to Europe to visit their families as well as other wonderful destinations such as New Zealand, Egypt, the Galapagos Islands, South Africa, and Turkey.

In 2000, the couple retired from teaching and moved to Windsor, Vermont in 2002 but Margaret did not retire from dressmaking. At her home in Windsor, Vermont, Margaret had a very extensive sewing room complete with a mannequin customized to the exact measurements of her daughter, Penelope. During this time, in between continued world travels, Margaret was busy making fancy clothes for Penelope for the boardroom and the dance hall. Express packages containing fabric and sewing patterns arrived regularly with “best before” dates. Margaret worked tirelessly and happily on these dress projects so that her fashionable New York daughter could have a new gown for every important social event.

Margaret’s life in Windsor, Vermont included many family visits and particularly visits from Penelope, her husband, Chris and their son, Julian, and from Adrian, his wife Shelley, and sons Liam and Cypress, who all enjoyed the quiet time provided by the slow-moving pace of life in rural Vermont. In addition to travelling to faraway places, Margaret spent her time enjoying another one of her favourite pastimes – cooking gourmet meals including making her famous delicious whole grain bread. She also made a small network of good friends, many of whom she met in her bone-builders class in nearby Hartland, Vermont.

In 2018, her husband of 54 years passed away and living alone in Vermont became too challenging. Not wishing to live in the big city of New York City where Penelope lived, she chose to return to Vancouver, BC where Adrian was living. This last chapter of her life involved two more stages. At first, she lived in an independent living home for seniors where she had a small apartment. Although she insisted of having a full kitchen in her new home, once she moved in and found how agreeable it was to have someone cook and clean for her, she never cooked another meal in her life. At her new home, Margaret made a new set of acquaintances including her dear friend, Fran. COVID was hard for everyone and Margaret was no exception. She experienced a fall just before the pandemic outbreak ending up in hospital with no opportunity to return to her new home because of social distancing protocols. Margaret’s final move was to Berkley Care Center where she spent the remainder of her life in the care of the wonderful staff at this facility with weekly visits from Adrian and his family who lived nearby and from Penelope and her family at regular intervals.

Margaret Clark passed away peacefully on July 14, 2026 with her family close at hand.