from the August 23, 1995 issue of The Country Chronicle
Lebanon, NH–Alma Townsend Clark, 77, of Lebanon, NH, died gently on August 1, 1995, at her summer home in Charlotte, VT.
Mrs. Clark, a lifelong resident of Lebanon, NH, was born there on January 13, 1918, in the home of her parents, Philip Nelson Townsend and Mabelle Peabody Townsend.
She was a graduate of Lebanon High School and of Northampton Business College in Northampton, MA. She and her husband, Arthur J. Clark, owned and operated the Honey Gardens Dairy and the Honey Gardens Health Food Store of Lebanon, NH. She and her husband, Arthur, supported the Hanover and Upper Valley Food Co-ops and the Learning School of Norwich, VT.
Mrs. Clark’s many interests include astronomy, bird watching, landscaping with wild plants, exploring country roads, and playing classical, popular, improvisational, and ragtime piano, and traveling. She enjoyed the theater, concerts, lectures, recitals, films, foreign movies, public and informational television, short-wave radio, and music, especially opera.
Mrs. Clark was an amateur photographer and a member of the Photographic Society of America. For many years a snapshot she took of her young son in a hat looking out a truck’s window was displayed in various sizes on a poster outside the Camera Shop on Allen St.
She was interested in health and nutrition, which she studied and put into practice. She worked out regularly on the Nautilus machines at Carter-Witherell, and a photograph of her husband can be seen on a current brochure.
She enjoyed bicycling, sometimes cycling 10 miles or more to a family or friend’s house, usually before breakfast. She took figure skating lessons at the Skating Club at Dartmouth along with her school-age children. She started roller skating when she was 60, took freestyle lessons. Patrons of Al’s Casino will remember her as the lithe white-haired woman in a bright skating dress. Mrs. Clark also liked to hike, walk, and go cross-country skiing. She loved nature and being outdoors.
Mrs. Clark’s broad reading ranged from a wide variety of magazines, classics, best sellers, to how-to books, and Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.”
Mrs. Clark was an avid student of Russian history, literature, and language. Mrs. Clark traveled to Russia twice.
All kinds of weather delighted her. She would note and point out to her children such things as the different cloud patterns, how the rain sometimes fell from clouds in sheets, and if it was raining on one of the car and not the other. She would join her children in collecting hail stones, never scolded them for running around in the rain, and even put a big 40-quart milk can under a downspout from the eves so they could take turns standing in it. Sometimes in the winter she flooded the back yard or the field to make skating rinks. She loved to breathe the air before a storm. When there was a thunderstorm she would throw aside the curtains and stand ecstatically at the window watching the storm and inviting her family to join her.
She is survived by Arthur, her husband of 53 years; six children: Judi Chatman of Dover, NH; Jean Clark Townsend of Canaan, NH; Richard A. Clark of Lebanon, NH; Philip G. Clark of Lebanon, NH; Sidney C. Clark of Fort Walton Beach, FL; and Suzanne V. Clark of Hanover, NH; by two brothers: Ira Townsend of Meriden, NH; and A. Storrs Townsend of Lebanon, NH; by an aunt: Irene Robinson of Cape Cod, MA; five grandchildren; two step grandchildren; two great grandchildren; two step great-grandchildren; a niece; a nephew; cousins; and other relatives, including the Townsends of Storrs Hill in Lebanon, NH.
A memorial service was held in Lebanon, NH.