 | | | Friends and family of Louise Clark remembered her with flowers at the
base of the Crosses. Photo Cathy Tyson
| | | | | | Best known as the owner of the hillside that hosts the "Crosses of Lafayette" memorial bearing testament to the over 4500 U.S. service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Louise Clark passed away recently at 86, after a year-long battle with lymphoma.
Together with Jeff Heaton, Clark created the Peace Memorial. "Louise has always been a mentor, and taught me that thinking outside the box is not only acceptable but the best way to bring about lasting peace," wrote Heaton on the Crosses website.
She was born in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago where she met her future husband, Johnson Clark. They had six children.
Although the hillside memorial began in 2006, she was active in Lafayette concerns decades earlier. She was an original member of the Lafayette Senior Recreation Center - now part of Senior Services. One of the few women architects at that time, after moving to Lafayette in 1950, she designed the family home. She became active in the antiwar movement of the late 1960's and was one of the founding members of the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center.
Mary Alice O'Conner, Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Center, remembers Clark as, "A remarkable, passionate woman. What she cared about, she acted on. She was a longtime member, and active in peace work her whole life - a draft counselor during the Viet Nam war. We're very sad at her passing."
In 2009 Clark received a Green Award from Sustainable Lafayette in conjunction with the City of Lafayette "For being a model to her neighbors and the community in retrofitting her 52-year old home to become energy efficient and not burn any fossil fuel," read the proclamation.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA