Ardis Edgerton Clark

Ardis Edgerton Clark, formerly of Ocala, Florida, and Vermont, passed away peacefully in January at 91 in Hernando. Services will be held at Marion Oaks Community Congregational Church, UCC, at 2 p.m. on February 5.

Ardis was born December 10, 1933, in Bennington, Vermont. She was raised on a struggling dairy farm in nearby West Arlington at the end of a road beyond a covered bridge. The artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell and his family were among her childhood neighbors and friends. The Edgerton family, including Ardis, posed for Norman for his cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post.

Ardis was an excellent student and attended Castleton State Teachers College. However, love transitioned her away from her teaching career as she married her childhood sweetheart, Raymond Clark, and followed him through his Navy Service years. They became partners in parenthood as well as in business. The couple soon became local IGA grocers after Ray’s training under the GI bill at his father’s store in East Arlington, VT. Over the next thirty years, they operated five different supermarkets in Vermont and New Hampshire. In the 1980s, Ray and Ardis passed their business on to their children, and built a home in Ocala, Florida, where they lived together until Ray’s untimely death in 1999.

Before Ray’s passing, the pair spent many hours playing golf and bridge with their new friends and transplanted family and were vital in helping to start a UCC church in their adopted community of Marion Oaks. Ardis continued to be active and serve the church in numerous positions, including singing in the choir. Her generous nature involved her in several charities, notably the Ocala Dames for Cancer Research, following Ray’s passing after 45 years of marriage.

Ardis was a devout Christian and kind to all who she knew. She would readily talk, share, and care for those she did not know. (And boy did Ardis love to talk and share her many stories and experiences:) Ardis was also a very enthusiastic sportswoman, proved through her days at Arlington Memorial High School when she would play three sports seasons and still have time for her share of chores. Later in life, she and Ray enjoyed attending their children’s games and playing golf together. She was pre-deceased by her parents, James M. Edgerton and Clara Bernice (Wilcox) Edgerton, and her sisters, Joy Freisatz and Edith Zindle, as well as her brothers, James “Buddy” Edgerton and baby Harold.

Ardis is survived by her children, Marshall Ray Clark of Beverly Hills, FL, Miner Charles Clark, and Brenda Clark, both from Inverness, FL as well as daughters-in-law, Melanie and Debbie Clark; granddaughters, Chelsea, Charity, and Amanda Clark, Courtney Rohrig, Nicole Reilly, grandsons; Jaimie Kramer, Robert Rohrig, and Michael and Nathan Clark. She left ten great-grandchildren as well. Her life was an active one, and her family, friends, and acquaintances were blessed to be near her during her long time here on Earth. The entire Clark family finds comfort in Ardis’s legacy of an active, kind, well-lived life.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to Marion Oaks Community Congregational Church, UCC at 15050 SW 29th Terrace Road Ocala, FL 34473. An eventual celebration of Life and interment of ashes will be held in Arlington, VT on a summer 2025 date to be later determined.