Barbara Clark

Our beloved mother and grandmother, Barbara Goodsell Clark, broke free from this world on a most auspicious day, Samhain or All Hallows Eve, Oct. 31, 2020, at the Fairbanks Pioneers' Home. Not only is Samhain when the veils between the worlds grow thin, there was a bright blue moon to guide her on a beautiful crystal-clear night. After a long full productive life of 94 years, Barbara became another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February this year just before the pandemic lockdown, she moved into the Pioneers' Home, where she lived her last eight months in isolation from family and friends. This was not how she had envisioned her life ending.
Barbara was the second of three children of Charles True Goodsell and Frances Elizabeth (Comee) Goodsell. She spent most of her childhood in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where her father was a professor of history at Kalamazoo College. Being a true independent soul, she was a tomboy who played, climbed trees and built forts with her friends in the woods behind the college. They had a camp on Elk Lake, Michigan, where they spent their summers camping, building a cabin and again playing in the woods. This childhood love of the woods was the beginning of her love and fierce commitment for the environment.
Barbara attended Kalamazoo College for her bachelor's degree and went to Purdue University for her master's degree in biology. While at Purdue, Barbara met and married John Ray Clark Jr., a Ph.D. electrical engineering student. When she became pregnant, John hooked up a stethoscope to a speaker so they could listen to the heartbeat in her womb and were very surprised to discover two distinct heartbeats! Barbara had to walk down the aisle to get her master's diploma with her robe not quite buttoned down the front of her huge belly. She was then plunged into motherhood with twin daughters rather than a career in biology as planned. Barbara and John eventually added two sons to their family. The family went on many camping trips and especially loved going to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. It was like a dream come true when John got offered the chairmanship of the Electrical Engineering Department at Michigan Technological University in the UP.
When her children were all in school, Barbara finally was able to pursue a career. She began by teaching biology first at a community college, then high school. This required lots of new learning for Barbara as biology had changed so much since her college days. She encouraged her students to become political environmentalists by founding the Students for Pollution Control club at Houghton High School. Along with local environmental cleanup activities, this club went to the state capital in Lansing, where they successfully lobbied for the Michigan Bottle Bill. They were quite well-known as an enthusiastic activist group.
After retiring, Barbara got more involved with local politics and volunteering for environmental issues. She worked with environmental groups and the National Park Service to designate Isle Royale in Lake Superior as a National Wilderness Area. Barbara ran for a Michigan Statehouse seat against four men and came in second, quite a feat back then. She was the first woman to serve on the Houghton County commission and served three terms. She also served on the charter commission, making a new charter for the city of Hancock. Then Barbara ran for Hancock City Council and served as mayor for several years. Her crowning achievement was implementing the building and completion of the Portage Lake water and sewage treatment plant that earned her the nickname "Sewer Queen."
Barbara and John bought a log cabin set on 225 acres of mixed maple forest in the 1960s. Barbara became interested in issues of healthy forest management and had the land registered as a tree farm with the state of Michigan. She became very involved with the Lake States Forestry Alliance and the American Forestry Association, traveling extensively among the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota as well as trips to Washington, D.C. Not only did she lobby for better forest management, Barbara learned to wield a chainsaw and actively managed their woodlands with selective cutting, back when clear-cutting forests was the norm.
In their later years, Barbara and John loved to travel, going on many Smithsonian and Elderhostel trips around the world. After John's death, Barbara decided to move to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2007 for her last adventure and to be near her daughter Frances and family. Upon arriving in Fairbanks, Barbara immediately got involved with fundraising and lobbying for the proposed Raven Landing Retirement Community. She was the second person to move in when it opened. Barbara spent 12 happy active years there, making many new friends. She was active in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks, sang in several different choirs and continued volunteering as long as she was able.
Barbara is survived by her twin daughters, Barbara Kingsley (Peter), of Peterborough, New Hampshire, and Frances Schulz (Robert), of Fairbanks; sons, Charles Clark, of Campbell, California, and Steven Clark (Shan), of Wilton, New Hampshire; her brother, Charles True Goodsell Jr., of Blacksburg, Virginia; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
There will be a private family celebration of life in Michigan at a future date. There will be good stout beer on tap and classical music to listen to.
Barbara's family sincerely thanks the Pioneers' Home and Fairbanks Hospice for their kind and diligent care of Barbara's last days on this earth.