Cherry Nichols Clark
Saturday, August 7, 2004
Cherry Nichols Clark, 86, of Rockport, formerly of Providence, R.I., died
Thursday in Ledgewood Nursing Center in Beverly, after a brief illness. She was
the wife of the late John L. Clark, retired senior partner in the Providence law
firm Edwards & Angell, who died in 1987.
Born in Cambridge, she was the daughter of the late John Taylor Gilman Nichols
and his wife, Emily Alan (Smith) Nichols. She was a 1936 graduate of the Winsor
School in Boston.
She had a lifelong interest in sports and was well known on Cape Ann as a tennis
player and a sailor who raced her Rhodes 19 class sailboat Witchcraft into her
early 80s. She regularly hosted parties at her Eden Road home for racing events
out of the Sandy Bay Yacht Club. In her earlier years, she had been a figure
skater with the Cambridge Skating Club.
She also supported the athletic endeavors of her children and grandchildren and
was familiar with most of the hockey rinks, gymnasiums and playing fields in New
England.
In Providence, she was a former president of the Rhode Island Maternal Health
Association which later became Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island and was
founding president of radio station WJAR's Call for Action, a hotline for
citizens in need of help cutting through bureaucratic red tape. She was also an
active volunteer in the mayoral campaigns of Frederick Lippitt.
She is survived by three sons, Thomas L. and his wife Nancy of Beverly, John G.
of Windsor, Conn., and Rockport Selectman Charles H. and his wife Molly of
Rockport; two daughters, Joanna and her husband Joseph Swayze of Dedham and
Rockport, and Martha and her husband Andrew Rappoli of Rockport; eight
grandchildren, Andrew Swayze and wife Jean of Burlington, Vt., Olivia Clark of
New York City, John Clark and Leila Clark, both of Windsor, Conn., Madeline
Rappoli and Reed Rappoli, both of Rockport, Joanna Clark and Gilman Clark, both
of Rockport; a sister, Ann O'Grady Martin of Rockport; and several nieces and
nephews.
She was predeceased by her sister, Helen Thompson of Rockport, and her brother,
John Taylor Gilman Nichols III of Marblehead.
A memorial service will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at the First Congregational
Church, Rockport.
Friends and relatives are invited to attend.
Arrangements are by the Burgess & Mackey Funeral Home, 201 Main St., Rockport.
