John Eliot Clark

John E. Clark, BA (Manitoba), D Phil(Oxon), passed away in the Comfort Care Ward of St. Boniface Hospital, Winnipeg, Manitoba, on January 27, 2014. He was 81 years of age. John was predeceased by his parents John and Margaret “Bunty” Clark (McCormick) and by his three sisters Jean, Barbara (Wooler) and Margaret (Anderson), and by his niece Leslie Ferguson (Wooler), and is now mourned by his cousin Bill Morrison (Gimli, Manitoba), his nieces and nephews Richard Wooler, Louise, Bill, and Cindi Anderson (California), and Richard and Alexander Ferguson (Oregon and California). John was also predeceased by his beloved partner of 50 years Alex L. Gordon. He leaves to grieve him his many friends and colleagues from the University of Manitoba, among whom are Eric and Eleanor Annandale, Graham and Shirley Padgett, Alan MacDonell, Armelle St-Martin and Harold Lugsdin, as well as from Scotland Sandy Gordon’s brothers Grant and Angus and his nephews Neil and Iain. John’s many friends can be found all over Canada as well as Switzerland, France, Bermuda and the United Kingdom.

John’s life centered around his university colleagues, his friends and his extended family, and his students at the University of Manitoba. His special passion was for classical music. An accomplished pianist himself, he spent his spare time learning the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach and all 550 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti during his long studies with the late Alma Brock-Smith. His musical gods were Bach, Beethoven and Liszt among composers, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claudio Arrau, Sviatoslav Richter, Alfred Brendel, and Marc-André Hamelin among pianists. His discerning ear identified the special qualities of young musicians such as Jan Lisiecki, Paul Lewis and Cédric Tiberghien.

Those who were fortunate enough to be guests of John and Sandy at 4C Pasadena Court in Winnipeg or 50 rue Durantin in Paris, France, could count upon good wine and food (John was a true gourmet chef), scintillating conversation and the true warmth of a welcoming environment. Scotch was his tipple and Pommard his favourite wine. John was a lifetime reader, whose interests ranged widely across the spectrum from novels and biographies to music and politics in addition to his scholarly reading in the literature of the French Renaissance.

Like his literary hero Montaigne, John struggled with ill health bravely and stoically in the last years of his life. To his enormous regret his regular autumn visits to Paris finally became impossible. That struggle became even harder after the sudden death of Sandy Gordon in 2011, when his care fell into the hands of young Chris Jupiter and Jordan Delmonte, and his close neighbour John Schroeder. As the end became inevitable and he was in hospital failing day by day, Shirley Padgett, Chris, and Jordan gave John very special and loving care, which he much appreciated.

John Eliot Clark will be sorely missed by all who knew him. We shall not soon see his like.