Karen’s favorite story of herself was an incident when she was thirteen years old. Joyously pedaling around the building site where her father worked, she drove her bike completely through the wall of the construction shack, shaming her horrified father who was inside the shack meeting with his boss.
Her mother’s favorite story of Karen showed a different side. It took place on a hot summer’s day when the ten-year-old girl, barefoot and muddy, stood on the respectable streets of Neosho, Missouri, holding a box full of mewling kittens available to any who could offer them a good home. Karen’s grandfather had threatened their imminent demise, and the fiercely-protective little girl was having none of that.
Karen Davis Clark never departed from the Karen she was in these stories. Headstrong and passionate, she grew up, married and had three children. But her love of animals (especially cats) and a tendency to crash through the walls of social niceties never left her. She died on April 6, 2019, at the age of 80. She leaves behind her children - Nicholas Glynn Clark (Jo Anne Neal Clark), George Benjamin Clark (Kimberly J. Clark), and Diana Clark Gill (John Marshall Gill). Her grandchildren Anne Neal Ammons (Christopher John Ammons), Charles A. Neal V, Leah Neal Cunningham (Steven Elliot Cunningham), Kathryn Elaine Clark, William David Clark (Ashley Kaylan Clark), Samuel Benjamin Clark, Caroline Faith Clark, and Daniel Jonathan Clark. Her great-grandchildren include Booker Clark Ammons, Caleb Elliot, Walker Dayton, Harrison Neal, and Ruthie Anne Cunningham, William David Clark and Marshall Jonathan Clark. Also survived by her ex-husband William B. Clark, Jr. (Patricia Born Clark), she leaves her beloved cats as well – Scotch, Red-Tail, Rosie and Little Boots.
She was predeceased by her parents Margaret Elaine (Chapman) Davis and George Allman Davis.
Services will be held at the Memphis Funeral Home located at 5599 Poplar Avenue. Gathering for family and friends will begin at noon, Saturday, April 13th followed only by a funeral service beginning at 1:00 p.m. The family requests that any memorials be made through the Memphis Humane Society.
Karen Davis Clark. She lived the life she was meant to with great kindness.
