Clara Marie (Perkins) Marchant

Clara Marie Perkins Marchant
5/7/1938 – 4/14/2023

Introduced by her grandmother, Della Day James of Longview, Texas. on February 26, 1956, eighteen-year-old Clara Marie Perkins, daughter of Tom W. Perkins and Clara Mae James Perkins, McKinney, Texas, began what she described as a “life of adventure” when she married Second Lt. Joe F. Marchant, son of Rev. and Mrs. A.D. Marchant of Denison, Texas on July 14, 1956.  For sixty-seven years, Joe enjoyed teasing her that he never proposed.

Near completing training at Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas, Joe phoned Clara Marie, a student at North Texas University, to tell her of his first permanent duty assignment to Naha Air Base, Okinawa; she replied, “Can I go?” Joe said, “We’d have to be married,” she replied, “I’ll call Mother.” Clara Marie relished their twenty-one-year career of eleven duty stations, living in nineteen homes before retiring to Richardson, Texas.

She was active in Officers Wives Clubs, serving as President of L. B. Hanscom Field Officers Wives Club, Chicopee, Mass, and involved in the Episcopal Church in Norman, OK; Anchorage, Alaska, San Antonio, TX; Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, NY, and the
Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, Dallas, TX, where she was active in the Altar Guild and the Bell Choir.

She is preceded in death by son Joe Stephen Marchant and sister Sally Adelle Jeanes.  Survived by husband Joe, daughter Clara Loumay Marchant, son Michael Marchant, daughter-in-law Carol Molloy Marchant and grandchildren Cody Kraushaar, and Dakotah Appelhaus Kraushaar, Briana Kraushaar Ausbrooks,  and Tom Ausbrooks, Jessica Marchant Erickson, and Dennis Erickson, and four great-grandchildren, Everly, Riley, and Bailey Erickson and Alexander Joseph Ausbrooks and her sister Patricia Perkins Melander.

Always commenting on Clara Marie’s smile, laughter, and infectious cheerful attitude, her friends remark that God needed an angel to greet newcomers.

Requiem Eucharist
Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration
14115 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, TX 75254
11:00 AM, Saturday, May 13, 2023
The services will be live-streamed HERE.

Please send memorials to the Altar Guild or the Bell Choir of the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration: Online at Memorial Donations. By mail or in-person at 14115 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, Texas 75254.

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