Mary Emma (Smith) Clouse

Mary Emma Clouse (née Smith), 91, died on December 29, 2022, at The Laurels of Chatham in Pittsboro, NC.

She was born Dec. 20, 1931, in Lockport, New York, north of Buffalo, to Pauline Christine (née Liddell) and Walter Albert Smith. She had an older brother, Edward Francis, and a younger sister, Dorothy Ann, both of whom have already passed.

Mary enjoyed school and was active in clubs, student government, and sports. She attended Nazareth College in Rochester, New York and was president of her senior class (1954). After graduation she became an English teacher in New York state public schools.

Throughout her life, Mary’s Catholic background and temperament led her towards service. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps in 1961, Mary joined. In 1963 she traveled to Africa as part of the fifth group of Peace Corps volunteers assigned to Nigeria and taught English at a secondary school for girls in the city of Kano. While there, she met John Thomas Clouse, of Murdock, Kansas (now deceased), who was working at NASA's satellite tracking station. They married in Kano on March 30, 1964. Mary’s experience in the Peace Corps transformed her life and instilled in her a love for Africa and its people.

For the next ten years, Mary and John’s lives followed the development of the U.S. space program. As John worked at satellite tracking stations around the world, their family grew. They were in Antananarivo, Madagascar, when their first son, David Anthony, was born in 1965. From Madagascar they moved to England and then Antigua, British West Indies. Their second son, Douglas John, was born in Orlando, Florida in 1966, and their third son, Ronald Matthew was born in Antigua in 1969. 

From the Caribbean they moved to Fairbanks, Alaska and then Barstow, California. In California they were inspired to re-enter a life of service, and in 1974 joined the Lay Mission-Helpers, a Catholic volunteer organization, which sent them to Micronesia (Pohnpei Island) to teach at a Jesuit-run vocational school (Ponape Agriculture and Trade School). Between teaching her classes, Mary homeschooled her sons with correspondence courses. In 1977 the family returned to the U.S. and drove through the South in a Ford Pinto looking for a place to settle, choosing Pittsboro, North Carolina. There they ran a breeder poultry farm on Chatham Church Road until 1989 and raised cows and other animals for 35 years. 

Starting in the mid-1980s Mary became an advocate for contract poultry farmers through a position at the Rural Advancement Foundation International in Pittsboro. She helped create the United Farmers Organization (UFO), traveled throughout the country to meetings, and published a newsletter that reached thousands of readers. Known for her organizing and writing skills, energy, and love of adventure and a good laugh, Mary was called the “mother of the movement” among the farmers she helped. In 1994 she was one of four recipients of the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, which recognized unsung heroes who made an impact in North Carolina communities. Interviews with Mary about her advocacy work are available in the Southern Oral History Program archives at UNC Chapel Hill.

In 2012 Mary moved to Twin Rivers Independent Senior Living, in 2018 to Cambridge Hills Assisted Living, and in 2022 to The Laurels, and in each community she made friends and joined activities.

She is survived by her three sons; her granddaughters Meredith Eve Clouse and Marissa Elizabeth Clouse; her brother’s children, nieces Debbie Bolas, Stephanie Geibel, and Kathy Spitz; numerous nieces and nephews on her husband’s side of the family; and yet more grand- and great-grand nieces and nephews.

A funeral mass will be held at St. Thomas More Church in Chapel Hill, NC on Friday, January 20, at 2:30pm. 
There will be a reception at St. Thomas More following the funeral. 

Those who would like make a donation in memory of Mary are encouraged to consider the following causes:

Friends of Nigeria, an organization of former Peace Corps volunteers who served in Nigeria that awards grants to projects in Nigeria:
https://www.friendsofnigeria.org/campaigns

Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA), a farm advocacy group in Pittsboro where Mary worked:
https://www.rafiusa.org/give/

Lay Mission-Helpers, a Catholic missions organization in Los Angeles that Mary and John joined in the 1970s:
https://laymissionhelpers.networkforgood.com/projects/55627-you-are-a-partner-in-mission