Background
Clark was born on February 9, 1903, in rural Jefferson County, Florida.
Clark was born on February 9, 1903, in rural Jefferson County, Florida.
She was one of the youngest of sixteen children in a family that worked on plantations, picking cotton and performing other farm related tasks. Clark"s grandparents were slaves on the Rindell plantation near Monticello, Florida. Clark married in 1925.
James Dickerson, in an article for the Tallahassee Democrat described Clark"s work:
Within her fingertips is carried the memory of an ancient African craft fast disappearing from the face of the Florida Panhandle.
African slaves, once brought to the Panhandle to work on plantations, made baskets to hold cotton picked from the fields. He further honed this skill in the 1983 Florida Folklife Apprenticeship Program and continued to share knowledge of basket making after Clark"s death in 1986.