Louise K. Clark

Long-time Edgemont resident Louise Kinsey Clark died on September 24 at White Plains Hospital following a brief illness. Mrs. Clark, age 92, graduated from Scarsdale High School and married her classmate Philip Wellington Clark in 1953. Twenty years after Mr. Clark’s death in 1999, she married Highschool classmate Peter Lawson Smith, who had attended Yale with Mr. Clark and was also godfather to their third child, Peter. The couple lived in New Rochelle at the time of her death.

One of four sisters, she was born in Charleston, West Virginia, to Catharine Koontz and Hartselle DeBurney Kinsey, an engineer at Union Carbide. After living in Indiana and Tennessee, the family settled in Scarsdale. Mrs. Clark graduated second in her class at SHS in 1948. She went on to Vassar College, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and then to Yale University, where she earned an MA in Latin.

A lifelong book enthusiast, Mrs. Clark taught Latin before raising a family, later returning to teaching Edgemont Highschool, and Manhattanville College. After co-authoring the History of Edgemont, she was named Edgemont Historian, one of her proudest titles. As a retired-octogenarian, Mrs. Clark generously tutored many Edgemont students in Latin, gratis.

For 75 years Mrs. Clark was a devoted parishioner of Saint James the Less Episcopal Church in Scarsdale. Mrs. Clark was Chair of the Altar Guild, recipient of the Audrey Davis award, and a generous donor to the music fund; in the words of Reverend Tom Newcomb, she was a “gargantuan presence.” Mrs. Clark’s annual “Christmas Book Party” to thank everyone who had worked on the church book sale was attended and loved by many.

For nearly seventy years, Mrs. Clark traveled extensively throughout Europe and North Africa and led countless Edgemont students, children and grandchildren to visit the great sites of Roman Antiquity. Mrs. Clark traveled for fifty years with her great friend Mrs. Emily Howell of Palo Alto, CA.

Mrs. Clark is survived by three sisters: Joanne Storey, Carol Kinsey, Melissa Mathews, and their families; many relatives on both the Clark and Kinsey side; her husband Peter Lawson Smith; three children: Catharine Price Gaylard (Timothy), Andrew Wellington Clark (Karen), Peter Kendall Clark (David); grandchildren: Elizabeth Honenberger (Stuart), Valerie Mitchell (Matthew ) Angela Wolff (Ben), Elise Belk (Jacob), Andrew Bower (Mindy) Abigail Poe (Charlie); great grand-children: Finn and Fiona Belk, Alice-Louise, Shirley, and Clark Honenberger; Maisie, Fletcher and Graham Bower; Jack and Luke Poe; and she had recently learned that she will soon have two more great-grandchildren. Funeral service and committal will be held at Saint James the Less on Sunday, November 6 at 1:30 PM.

"For many decades, my parents welcomed a number of young adults to live with them in their large home, who quickly became family, so Louise is also survived by many friends for whom she really was another mother. She was a natural caretaker, passionate teacher, lamb cake baker and tireless historian whose lifelong work in documenting the community’s history is invaluable. Her passing, shortly after Queen Elizabeth (whom she resembled) is felt by the very young and very old friends she so easily made until the very end. Seeing her surrounded by family and love from friends on her final day, her nurse remarked “this is what death should be: a celebration.-” Peter Kendall Clark, son