Mary Helen Clark

Mary Helen Clark (1902 - 1987) was an American Methodist missionary and teacher at a small, religious primary and secondary school in provincial Brazil.
Early life
Mary Helen Clark was born in Paris, Kentucky.
Missionary in Brazil
Clark became a missionary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1928. While there, she taught at the Bennett School, the Izabela Hendrix School in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and the Colegio Metodista Americano in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. Clark eventually became the principal of the Colegio Americano, serving from 1952-1968. Under her leadership, the school added several new courses in close cooperation with the federal government. During the floods in 1964, the school (under Clark's direction) assisted with the disaster relief and cared for 100 victims. For her efforts, Clark subsequently received the "Citizen of Porto Alegre" award, the highest honor given by the provincial city of Porto Alegre.
Legacy
Clark retired after forty years as a missionary, sixteen of which were spent as the director of the Colegio Americano, and returned to the United States in 1968, living in Nashville, Tennessee (where her sister Blanche Henry Clark Weaver lived) until her death in 1987. According to Margarida Fatima Souza, a professor at the Methodist University of São Paulo, "It is evident that under the directorship of Mary Clark, the school found itself at the vanguard of education." After her return to the United States, she remained in contact with administrators at the Colegio Americano. Following her death, her family donated her papers to the Special Collections Library at Vanderbilt University. The Mary Helen Clark Papers contain .42 linear feet and 33 file folders of documentation.

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