Fonds F3708 - Vera Clark fonds

Vera Greig Clark, nee Allen (1896-1997) was medical missionary and deaconess. She was born in Smith Falls, Ontario to parents Mary Elizabeth Eugenia (Minnie) Condie and William Thomas Allen. From a young age she was active in the church, she played the organ and taught Sunday school which inspired her to become a missionary. She did very well in school and earned a scholarship to Queen’s University. While at school in 1918 she answered a call for volunteers and went to Latchford Ontario as a Presbyterian missionary to serve as the community’s sole preacher. Also while at school she met James Mortimer Clark whom she married in 1920 upon graduation. She graduated from Queens with B.A. and later a B.A., M.B. After marrying Mortimer they took a train to the first boat sailing out of Canada which was to West China to the province of Szechwan. There they served as Methodist medical missionaries living in Jenshow from 1920-1922, and Luchow from 1922 until Mortimer’s sudden death from typhoid fever in 1925. After his death, she and their two children returned to Canada where she served as a United Church deaconess in Toronto from 1927-1944. In 1944 she remarried to Frederick Charles Clark, younger brother of Mortimer, and became the matriarch of blended family of five children. After serving as a deaconess she remained active in the United Church for the rest of her life.