Martha Heady Clark

Martha Louise Heady Clark, 92, of Owensboro, died at 9:40 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, at the Carmel Home.

Martha was born on April 2, 1924, in the Daviess County community of West Louisville to Dominic and Ethelreda Riney Heady. She was the fifth of six children and grew up in Daviess County and in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where she graduated from high school before returning to Owensboro.

During World War II, while living in Owensboro, Martha worked for a defense contractor in Evansville, Indiana, that built LSTs for the war effort. She started dating her future husband, James Herbert Clark Jr., while he was in the Navy, and they married on June 11, 1946, just two months after he returned home to Owensboro.

As Martha and Jim built their family, she worked at Texas Gas Transmission Corp., and later in the cafeteria and then the library of Owensboro High School, from which she retired in 1985. She and Jim were a founding family of Immaculate Parish Catholic church in Owensboro, where she remained a member and in retirement often volunteered, counting collection money and helping serve bereavement dinners in the parish hall.

At home, everyone Martha met became a friend – neighbors, her sons' friends, people she enjoyed being around – and often found themselves at the dinner table having a piece of cake or a slice of pie, always made from scratch. Just as often, guests were persuaded to stay for dinner, which she cooked every night, even when she worked full time.

And could she ever cook. There was nothing she couldn't whip up, and she enjoyed spending time in the kitchen. She was an early adopter of microwave cooking in the early 1970s, even teaching adult education courses on how to create a meal using the appliance.

Martha was a Kentucky Colonel and she loved to travel. She enjoyed visiting her brother Raymond and his wife Cheryl in Southern California, and she and Jim spent several winters in Orlando, where they became fast friends with neighbors of their son, who lived there at the time.

In her later years, after Martha and Jim moved to the Carmel Home in 2007, she was known as one of the raffle ladies, selling chances to anyone who came in the front door. She also led shopping escapades to Macy's, where she and fellow Carmel Home ladies would sort through the sale racks each week. In the evenings, she loved playing cards around her big, round table with an assortment of people including the late Father Phil Riney, a cousin, and her dear friend Margaret Clark.

Martha was preceded in death by Jim, her husband of nearly 65 years, on Feb. 28, 2011, as well as their son James Herbert Clark III; her brothers Dennis Heady, Donald J. Heady and Raymond J. Heady; and her sister Christine Brooks.

She is survived by her sons, James Gregory Clark and Daniel Joseph (Debbie) Clark of Owensboro, and Charles Edward Clark of Bowling Green; her sister, Mary (Jim) Hahn of Cape Girardeau, Missouri; five granddaughters, Somer (Justin) Wilhite, Brooke (Jarrod) Hagan, Leslie Avery and Kelli (Devin) McKnight, all of Owensboro, and Ashley (Chad) Costello of Bardstown; 11 great-grandchildren, Madalyn Story and Ethan Avery, Kate and Hallie Wilhite, Makenna and Kaden McKnight, Kayley Clark and Liam Hagan, all of Owensboro, and Kinley, Colton and Caden Costello of Scottsville, Kentucky; and scores of nieces, nephews and cousins.

Visitation will be from 1:00-2:00 P.M. Tuesday at the Carmel Home, and then 3:00-8:00 P.M. Tuesday at Glenn Funeral Home and Crematory, where prayers will be said at 7:00 P.M. Tuesday. Funeral Mass will be at 10:00 A.M. Wednesday at Immaculate Catholic Church, 2516 Christie Place, Owensboro, with Father Maury Riney presiding. Friends may call from 8:30-9:30 A.M . Wednesday at the funeral home. A private burial along with the remains of her husband will be held at a later date at St. Alphonsus Cemetery in St. Joseph, Kentucky.

Expressions of sympathy may take the form of donations to the Carmel Home, 2501 Old Hartford Road, Owensboro, KY 42303.