Joyce T. Clark

WOOLWICH – Joyce T. Clark of Woolwich, passed away Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, at home, in the care of a Christian Science Nurse, her husband Jon by her side, embraced in love.

Joyce was born July 19, 1938, in South Pasadena, Calif. and raised in Glendale. She was an only child. When old enough to reach the keyboard, she was found caressing individual keys to hear their sounds. Her musical gift soon became apparent and she was groomed to enter a conservatory and pursue a career as a classical pianist, but while she adored the piano, she resisted being pressured. She gave recitals in California, but studied education at University of California Santa Barbara and taught elementary school for several years. She took an extended tour of Europe to broaden her horizons and a few years later moved to Maine.

Here she refocused on her music, performing on the piano as soloist and in chamber groups and accompanying many instrumentalists, singers and choruses. She also studied the organ and in 1974 attended the Colby College Church Music Institute directed by Thomas Richner. She was a member of the American Guild of Organists and gave a number of organ recitals and was church organist at the Christian Science Society in Boothbay and later at First Church of Christ, Scientist in Brunswick. She taught organ for a brief time.

In 1981, her future husband saw her performing on the harpsichord with a chamber group at Bowdoin College and immediately fell in love. They married the following year. They shared innumerable loves, including a love of music and of animals, taking in many stray and shelter cats and a Yellow Labrador. They traveled extensively in North America, including to places she never imagined she’d go, from the Gila Wilderness to northern Labrador.

For decades she gave private piano lessons to young people and adults. She served on the faculty of the Portland Conservatory of Music. She was a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music in Piano. For a number of years, she also worked part time as an assistant and researcher for David Wendell Associates, Investment Counsel.

Always interested in growing and absorbing new musical ideas, she took many opportunities over the years to study with pianists whom she respected. In 1997, she decided to obtain a music degree and in 2001 received her Bachelor of Music in Music Performance with honors from the University of Southern Maine School of Music. In recent years, at the urging of her husband, she made two CDs of solo piano music for friends and family.

She loved fabrics and yarns and made many of her own clothes and knitted sweaters for her husband and baby blankets for family and friends.

She was a member of the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston and the branch church in Brunswick and was a member of the Wiscasset Female Charitable Society.

Her beautiful smile welcomed all, and she easily made friends with people of all ages and from all walks of life who responded to her kindness, gentleness, humility and generosity.

She and her husband were sponsors of several children in Africa and South America.

She is survived by her beloved and adoring husband, Jon Clark. She is also survived by her brother-in-law Bruce Clark of Brunswick; by her late sister-in-law Robin Lyn’s children: Leiza Greenwood and her husband Robert of Los Angeles, Calif. and their son; Tabitha Wheatley and her husband Easton of Charlotte, NC and their daughter; Nicholas Biron of Lewiston, Maine; Sabria Battaglia and her husband Giuseppe of Shelbyville, Ky. and her two children; Blake Berrisford of Shelbyville, Ky.; and Cruz Berrisford of Alamogordo, NM; and by her brother-in-law Chad Clark and his wife Carol of Readfield, their son Matthew and wife Amy of Topsham and two children, and their daughter Sarah Kapiloff and husband Alex of Keene, NH and their two children. She is also survived by a broad family of friends. She was predeceased by her father Richard Tonk, stepfather James Richards and mother Louise Fambrough Richards and by all of her cousins.

At her request, there will be no service.

Donations may be made to:
Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah or

a local humane

animal shelter