Roberta Ilene (Carter) Clarke 12/26/1926 - 4/3/2013

Roberta Ilene (Carter) Clarke, 86, passed away at her Temecula, California home in the early morning hours of April 3, 2013; she was surrounded by her family.

Bobbie was born to Edward Stacey and Carolyn (Valch) Carter in Fordson, Michigan on December 26, 1926. She was raised and attended schools in Detroit. There she met a burgeoning artist named Richard Allen Clarke, who penned her love letters until she paid him mind. The two were married in 1948, and began their family in 1952 with the birth of their daughter, Janis. Three boys followed—Richard, Bill, and Robert—the family settled west into La Canada in 1960, all children attending La Canada schools through graduation at LCHS.

She was there for her daughter’s late-night high school sewing projects, and every one of her sons’ trackand- field meets, baseball tryouts and football games. The quintessentially stylish homemaker, she deftly transitioned into the role of working single mother. As a Travel Agent, she saw the world after moving to Newport Beach in 1976. Traveling through Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond, her sense of adventure came alive as she experienced the full spectrum of international offerings—no opportunity left untaken.

Ever the optimist and a romantic at heart, her retirement was spent tending her garden, which seemed always to be in full bloom; shepherding her expanding family, which grew to include seven grandchildren; and watching Hallmark movies, which spoke to the tender sweetness of her world.

With heavy hearts, she is survived by all her children and grandchildren: Janis, and her daughter, Nicole; Richard, and daughters, Jennifer and Ashley, and his wife, Dianna; Bill, his wife, Mary, and their children, Margaux and Carter; Robert, his wife Alicja, and their children, Natalia and Allen; and her sister, Donna Tiderington of Westland, Michigan. This amazing woman will be put to rest at Temecula Public Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the COPD Foundation (www.copdfoundation.org).