Patricia Conway Clark, 88

In loving memory of Patricia Conway Clark, Oct. 2, 1936 – May 23, 2025.

Patricia Conway Clark had an amazing 88-year journey. Born in Cripple Creek, Colorado, high in the Rockies, the only daughter of Donald Henry Conway the owner of a local general store and his wife, Audrey Virginia Anderson. Early in her childhood, her family relocated to Dallas, where Don became a traveling accountant for Sears and Pat and Audrey managed daily life as their father and husband worked the busy schedule of a road warrior. 

In her later years, Pat fondly remembered her childhood growing up in Dallas, vacations to Galveston and Mexico City and cherished memories of her friends in both high school and college, Southern Methodist University (SMU), where she met her beloved husband, Donald Lee Clark. 

They met on a double date during simpler times. As Pat humorously recounted, she would have swiped left in today's world. Yet despite first impressions, true love won the day, and the rest of their 65 years together is history.

Don graduated from SMU and joined the Air Force as an officer, and the newly married couple began their amazing global journey together. From Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, California, where her first son Brian was born in 1958, to Istanbul, where the three of them lived and served at the front line of the Cold War. 

Additional travel throughout the finest cities of Europe and the Middle East allowed Pat to experience the world up close and personal in ways that few in the 1960s could imagine. At one time, she spoke Spanish, Turkish and Russian and curated delicious recipes from all her international travels.

With military life came constant moves, and when stationed at the Pentagon in 1964, Pat gave birth to her son, Darren, in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Globetrotting was not over for the family of four and they all soon moved behind enemy lines to the Soviet Union, where Don served at the embassy and Pat, as an officer's wife in Cold War Moscow, managed the family while hosting and attending frequent dinner parties with international diplomats. The adventurers returned to the US, and Pat raised her family in Montgomery, Alabama, North Hampton, New Hampshire and another stay in Northern Virginia. 

In the early 1970s, Don retired from the military and they relocated their family to Bozeman, where Pat successfully transitioned from big city (D.C.) to small-town living in Montana while Don began a second career as a college administrator and eventual professor teaching Political Science and International Studies at Montana State University. An accomplished chef, Pat continued hosting dinner parties for Don's students, often featuring recipes she curated over her years of world travel. 

As the years passed, Pat saw her oldest son, Brian, marry the love of his life in Bozeman and start his life beyond Bozeman and later, Darren graduated from MSU, and he too relocated away from home. Pat kept herself busy in multiple ways during these transition years, including finally securing her own bachelor's degree from MSU in nutrition, coincidentally graduating and accepting her diploma with her eldest son, to being an early volunteer at Bozeman hospice and helping at the local animal shelter. After Don retired from university life, they moved to Bigfork to be closer to family. Pat and Don later moved to the Springs in Whitefish for the final years of their lives, with Don passing in December of 2020. 

Her two sons are deeply grateful for all those at the Springs who assisted her in her final years. Despite the loss, we rejoice that she is finally free, at peace with her loved ones in the next life. Her sons, Brian and Darren, along with their families, and her grandchildren, Kellin, Ryan, and Kevin, and her great-grandson, Luca, are the gift that Pat Clark granted us all. We could not have asked for a more loving, caring and supportive mother and grandmother.

We wish her well on her next adventure and celebrate the trials and tribulations she experienced in her rich time with us all, from the Rockies to Russia. She has returned to her loving husband and is fully able to revel in the wondrous time they shared and continue to share forever.