“Walk cheerfully through life

seeing that of God in every person”

(Priscilla used to say this every morning when she woke up.

Based on a quote by the Quaker minister, George Fox)

Priscilla Hannah Clark, November 23, 1924 - September 29, 2024

Priscilla Hannah Clark, beloved wife of the Reverend Charles Clark (Kelly), and mother of 5 children, died in Exeter, NH, on September 29, 2024. She was 99. Born in Pasadena, California, Priscilla was the daughter of Gwendolyn Veale Hannah and Robert Huntoon Hannah, The second of five Hannah girls, she grew up in a musical family, herself playing the violin and singing in church and school choirs from the age of 5. She showed a theatrical interest early on, as well, beginning with roles in church liturgical dramas. She attended Pasadena Junior High School, Pasadena City College and graduated from Occidental College in 1947 with a major in Philosophy. While at Occidental she sang as a Mezzo Soprano with the Glee Club, starred in Moliere’s Tartuffe with the Pasadena Playhouse and was admitted as a member to the National Dramatic Fraternity.

Priscilla was active in the Episcopal Church all her life. In 1946 she served as Secretary of the National Youth Commission for the Episcopal Church, attending that year’s General Convention in Philadelphia. Always an advocate for racial reconciliation, non-violence and justice issues, she participated in the Pasadena chapter of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the first interracial, interfaith church in the nation founded by civil rights leader and prominant religious figure, Howard Thurman.

In 1947, Priscilla married Edwin ‘Ned’ Spooner Potter of Santa Barbara, CA. Together in Berkeley, CA, Priscilla took classes at the inter-denominational Pacific School of Religion and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific while Ned finished his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley. They spent a memorable summer working together with the Episcopal Church on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Whiterocks, Utah. Soon after they made the decision to adopt Priscilla’s five year-old cousin and joyfully welcomed Pamela Grace into their lives. Tragically, in 1950, Ned died in a commercial airplane crash in the Santa Barbara mountains.

In 1952, Priscilla moved with Pammy to New Haven, CT to finish her course of theological study at the Yale Divinity School where she was among the first women to be admitted. Among her memorable classes was Christian Ethics taught by Richard Neibuhr. In May of 1953, Priscilla married the Rev. Charles (Kelly) Halsey Clark who was working as an assistant chaplian at Yale. Together they lived at and served as Directors of the International Student Center at Yale, in charge of the 600 foreign students at the University, offering care and hospitality in the wake of the Second World War.

In 1957, Priscilla and Kelly, along with Pammy and a newborn, sailed to South East Asia as overseas missionaries in theological education for the Episcopal Church. Living first in Singapore for ten years at St. Peter’s Hall/Trinity College, Priscilla was involved in ministries with St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral and other small congregations, bringing her love of music and theater to support and build community through the Arts. She produced and directed both Carlo Minotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors in which she sang the part of Amahl’s mother, and Benjamin Brittans’ Noyes Fludde (Noah’s Flood) singing the part of fiesty Mrs. Noah. Her annual Nativity productions for both children and adult players filled Singapore’s Cathedral during the Christmas season. She added to a growing family during those years with the birth of three other children.

From 1967 to 1977, Priscilla and family lived and worked in the Philippines where Kelly was the Dean at St. Andrew’s Theological Seminary in Quezon City. Along with raising her children, Priscilla continued serious voice training at the University of the Philippines under world-reknown operatic bass, Aurelio Estanislao. She received a Bachelor of Music from U.P. She is remembered by the St. Andrew’s community for her wonderful productions of Noye’s Fludde and Gilbert and Sullivans’ the Micado. The seminary’s ‘talent night’ programs in which she and Kelly performed musical hits such as “Anything You Can Do I can do Better” and “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun!” from Annie Get Your Gun.

Returning with the family to New Haven, CT, in 1977, Priscilla was reconnected to the Yale Divinity School /Berkeley Divinity School at Yale where she became involved with the Institute for Sacred Music, singing and touring with the Yale Concert Choir. She also came to study under the Catholic priest, writer and theologian Henri Nouwen, taking all the classes he offered at YDS and becaming a dear friend, providing a family home to Henri for several months after the death of his own mother. Her involvement in community theater at the New Haven Lawn Club saw her in several well-honed Gilbert and Sullivan roles for which she was known: Katisha in the Micado, and the piratical maid, Ruth, in the Pirates of Penzance.

In 1982, Priscilla moved with Kelly to New Hampshire where she lived for the rest of her life. During their ten years at St. Paul”s School in Concord, she joined Kelly in her own vocation of providing hospitality, care and community to students, faculty, staff and visitors in their rectory home. Upon ‘retirement’ to their new farm house, Concord’s historic Abbot House. Priscilla was active in the rural congregation of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, Dunbarton. She was also welcomed as a member of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, a spiritual community of Episcopal women called to a life of prayer, thanksgiving and simplicity and committed to transformative service.

Priscilla had a great life-long love for birds and flowers. Living in New Hampshire, she served on the Board of the Concord Audubon Society as well as the Concord Bird and Wildflower Club and the Concord Flower Mission. She started playing tennis more regularly, a sport she loved and which led to many friendships and a few memorable trips to Wimbledon. True to form, she continued to enjoy stage roles and sang for a season with The Songweavers in and around New Hampshire. Priscilla’s great joy at this time in her life was her relationship with her grandchildren with whom she had lots of adventures, as well as with four beautiful great granddaughters, and two great-great-granddaughters,

In her early 80’s, Priscilla discovered watercolor painting. She studied first at the Kimball Jenkins Art School in Concord and then under the acclaimed international watercolor painter and teacher, Doris Rice, in Exeter, NH. She spent a ten day painting course in Tuscany. Then, with Kelly, while on a pilgrimage up the California Coast from San Diego to Sonoma, she visited and painted the 21 California Missions. Those paintings formed an exhibit she called “California Pilgrimage along El Camino Real” which showed at the Kimball Jenkins Center, at Christ Church, Coronado, CA, as well as at the RiverWoods Retirement Community in Exeter, NH. Priscilla’s paintings have continued to be exhibited over the years in local shows and galleries.

Priscilla’s final decade was lived in her ‘independent living’ then ‘assisted living’ apartment homes at the Riverwoods Community in Exeter, NH. With limited vision, Priscilla in her own indominatable spirit, surrounded her life with family and dear friends, music, audio books, and an attentive care team. She passed away peacefully at the age of 99. ‘Siempre Adelante!,’ as she always said. “Always forward!”

Priscilla is survived by four children and their partners, Martha Clark (Bryan Zidek), Nathaniel Clark (Annie McCoy), Mary Price (Craig Schriefer) and Anne Clark (Tori Ryder); Eleven grandchildren (John and Erik Reynolds; Peter, Thomas and Nathaniel Boothby; Cody, Zane and Juniper Clark; Jesse and Martha Price; Jonathan Ryder-Clark) four great grandchildren (Grace, Ryann and Cameron Reynolds; Isabella Boothby), and two great-great-grandchildren (Aleeya and Jeanette Reynolds), many beloved nieces and nephews, and her brother-in-law, Charles Buff.

Priscilla was predeceased by her husband, Kelly, and her daughter, Pamela.

A Requiem Eucharist will be held on Saturday, November 16 at 11 AM in the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire. A reception will follow in the Rectory opposite the Chapel.

Priscilla will be interred in a private family service alongside her husband, Kelly, at the St. Paul’s cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in Priscilla’s memory to two non-profit organizations dear to her heart:

Victory Programs, Boston, Massachusetts (vpi.charityproud.org)

Little Sisters Fund, Kathmandu, Nepal (littlesistersfund.org)