Eleanor S. Clark; Weston musician was also activist
Near a long cabinet housing shelves of sheet music stand a harpsichord and pipe organ - not ordinary fare for a living room, but Eleanor Sherwood Clark was never mistaken for conventional. She played both instruments, often with musicians she had invited to the Weston house she and her husband designed to accommodate instruments and singers.
An accomplished musician and a woman who lulled herself to sleep reciting the poetry of Keats and Shakespeare, she dazzled friends with the breadth of her knowledge, even while choosing a modest path. She would, for example, often edit medical journal articles written by her husband, an eminent psychiatrist, but declined to let her contributions be credited in publication.
"There was that formality - she was incredibly polite and proper," Catherine Clark of Salisbury, England, said of her mother. "She came from a different time when people were expected to behave well. She didn't even like it when people called her Mrs. Clark. She was always Mrs. John G. Clark."
On March 15, a day that began with her singing with her church's choir, Mrs. Clark died in the house where, in private moments, she liked to slip into a small room to play favorite compositions by Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn on her piano. Police say her grandson, James Patrick Maguire Clark, used a knife to kill her. Along with her husband, who died a decade ago, she had joyously welcomed the birth of James, their only grandchild.
"He was the light of their lives, I'm telling you," Catherine said of her 22-year-old son, who has pleaded not guilty to murder and underwent a psychiatric evaluation last week. "She adored him."
"We all adored him," said Catherine's brother, Gordon of Keene, N.H.
And in turn, Mrs. Clark was the subject of much veneration.
"She was a combination of absolutely beautiful and extremely accomplished in art, in music, in literature," her daughter said.
"My sister knew more about more things than anybody I've ever met in my life, and I've met a lot of important people - ambassadors, ministers, secretaries," said Mrs. Clark's brother, Harrison Sherwood of Cambridge, England. "She knew more than the lot."
Comfortable with nearly any subject, she was sought after as a dining companion and for lingering conversations no one wanted to end.
"We would have long phone discussions, for two hours, and she was always recommending new books," said Larry Phillips, an organist and harpsichordist who met Mrs. Clark years ago when she began singing in his choir when he was music director at First Parish, a Unitarian Universalist church in Waltham. "She definitely had a love of ideas."
Eleanor Sherwood grew up in St. Cloud, Minn., where, with poise beyond her years, she was a top student. She also didn't hesitate to say no.
"She got along with most teachers, but if one made a mistake, she didn't forget it," her brother said. "She got into a row with one teacher that required parental intervention. She was told to apologize and she said, 'I would apologize if I was wrong.' She was 12 at the time. My sister was not about to accept wrongful behavior on the part of the teacher."
Though Mrs. Clark worshiped her father, even he learned that there were times she would not submit. Once he wanted her to perform a Chopin composition so that he could show off her talents, but the piece was so overplayed on the radio that she decided it wasn't worth her time.
"My father said, 'I will pay you $100 cash if you will learn this piece and play it for my friends,' and she said, 'I appreciate that, but I won't do it,' and that was that," her brother said. "And her strong father lost."
Said Mrs. Clark's son, Gordon: "One thing about my mom, she had a lot of inner strength and she was never a victim. She knew what she needed to do, and she did it. She was only a victim in her very last minutes, really."
In high school, she met John Clark, who had just returned from World War II. They fell in love, but her family insisted she finish her education before marrying, so she accelerated her studies and graduated after three years at Macalester College in St. Paul.
The Clarks married in 1949 and moved east when he attended Harvard Medical School. They settled in Lexington for several years before moving to the house in Weston. A social activist, Mrs. Clark helped found an area chapter of Women Strike for Peace and endured taunts while protesting the Vietnam War in weekly vigils and marches.
"They were doing stuff that was against the grain quite early," Catherine said of her parents. "They were very politically knowledgeable and very liberal, and unashamedly so."
When Dr. Clark became one of the first psychiatrists to speak out about the harmful effects of cults, the family and their Weston home became the target of pickets, particularly when he criticized the Church of Scientology.
Dr. Clark was resolute, and Mrs. Clark stood by him.
"They both felt this was something they were put on the earth to do," Catherine said. "My mother was invaluable to my father in this."
Dr. Clark died in 1999. While he was ill, Mrs. Clark got a driver's license for the first time at 63, and remained so vital at 80 that family and friends expected her to be part of their lives for years.
"She was one of the few people who really understood everything that I talked about, and that's what I'm going to miss, now that I can't call her up," her son said, choking back tears.
"She was an extraordinary sister," Mary Hannigan of Boston said through tears. "She was loving, warm, funny. I think a hundred times a day that I want to give her a call."
The family will hold a private service for Mrs. Clark, who counted among her favorite poems Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," which concludes:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?
A few days before she died, Mrs. Clark went to a cello concert with Phillips, and then out for a long lunch.
"Eleanor was as ebullient as I've ever seen her, and she recommended an author to me," he said. "She was an extraordinary woman, and I had a very good final moment with her, because I didn't know it was final." 