MARY ELIZABETH CLARK-MAXWELL SHCJ (Mother Mary Kentigern)
Born 22 December 1925First Profession 19 March 1958
Final Profession19 March 1963Death19 February 2015
Mary Elizabeth (Sister Mary Kentigern in early religious life and Biddy to her family) was born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, an area long associated with her father’s family. It was a place she always remembered with affection because it was there, as a very small child,that she learned from her Aunt Mary the names of local and garden flowers, including, it seems, the scientific versions. Throughout her long life, this keen interest in plants took various forms: studying botany at Oxford and loving the botanic garden there, teaching biology both before and after her entry into religious life, growing house plants and persuading them to flower against the odds, keeping an eye on the gardens of the houses in which she lived, and being available to produce the most splendid flower arrangements for an occasion.
The family lived in Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, while her father completed his medical training, and in 1937 settled on family property in Mackworth, near Derby, on the death of her paternal grandfather. Along with her beloved younger sister, Priscilla, Mary Elizabeth was sent as a boarder to a farm school in Buckinghamshire, where her particular responsibility was the dairy cows.The next stop was Somerville College, Oxford: here, some perceptive don recognized the potential in the young woman who had, on her own account, arrived for interview completely unprepared.In 1948, Mary Elizabeth returned to Derby, where she gained a post-graduate teaching certificate in the Diocesan Training College. Her first year of teaching, in Taunton, was followed by three years at Bath High School (1951-55).
It seems that Mary Elizabeth had become interested in Catholicism through the influence of a Catholic friend. She received conditional baptism in 1953, began to think about becoming a religious sister, and taught for a year at St Aloysius School in Phoenix Road, London. Her encounter with the Society came through a chance remark of her mother to a friend who happened to know Mother Mary St Mark Dallas. So she became a postulant at Mayfield in 1955, along with eight others. One of them writes:
From that very first evening, when the nine postulants unpacked in the courtyard at Mayfield, and Mary Elizabeth found she had brought brown and not the required black stockings, this loveable, slightly dishevelled figure came into our lives.
The following March, on entering the novitiate, Mary Elizabeth took the name Mary Kentigern, in honour of the sixth-century patron of Glasgow who had also evangelized her native Galloway; she would, she alleged, have preferred his pet name, Mungo, but was persuaded otherwise.
In the year after her profession Mary Elizabeth taught biology at St Leonards and Preston. She was then sent to Harrogate where, from 1959 until the school’s closure in 1970, she was also deputy head mistress.A six-year term as superior at St Leonards followed, after which she was moved to Mayfield, once more as a successful and beloved biology teacher and assistant house mistress.Next came a year’s sabbatical in Dublin (1986-87), during which Mary Elizabeth lived in Stable Lane while taking theology courses at Milltown Park and enthusiastically exploring Ireland for the first time.After the sabbatical she was appointed to the provincial council and becamesuperior of the Mayfield community (1987-93) and then, for a further three years, local leader of the London houses, based in Holland Villas Road. In 1996 she returned to Harrogate, where for the next four years she studied for a post-graduate diploma in theology and undertook tasks that included driving, flower arranging, and generally being a support in the community.In 2000 she returned to Mayfield, where she lived for seven years as a community member, as a supporter of Amnesty International and with more time for prayer. When the interprovincial community was established at Mayfield, Mary Elizabeth transferred to Norham Gardens, spending two years there before the final move to Harrogate in 2009.
These many changes of scene and responsibility enabled Mary Elizabeth to draw on her rich store of natural gifts and skills, and the experiences of her early years, all of which she distilled into a wisdom that enabled her to help communities and individuals through difficult times of transition (as at St Leonards and in London), enrich her friends and pupils, and ensure that she remained open to the possibilities of new learning. Nourished by earlier experiences of holidays in the Alps, her delight in the created world was unbounded, from microscopic pond life to the curiosities of Homo sapiens, taking in along the way pet mice, assorted dogs, and the birds in the garden at Apley Grange.Mary Elizabeth also loved words and the possibilities that they offered for seeing situations from a different angle.Her lightness of touch came out in puns (sometimes bad), impromptu limericks, and an ability to beat most people at Scrabble in a way that nevertheless left them looking forward to the next game.Other accomplishments included needlework and painting.
There were, of course, limitations. Her claim to be tone deaf obtained for her an almost unprecedented exemption from noviceship choir practices, and history does not relate the novice director’s reaction to being informed by Mary Elizabeththat she could be tidy or punctual, but not both at the same time.In later years, tidiness and order were not priorities, and yet the apparent chaos of her room did not prevent her from finding things—even, on occasion, things she didn’t yet know she had lost.
No stranger to low spirits, Mary Elizabeth sometimes struggled to remain positive, and when she didn’t quite manage it, those on the receiving end (including herself) would find her critical ability hard to bear. Things became increasingly difficult after her first stroke in 1999: she gradually lost mobility and, in the last year of her life,could no longer find the will to master the machines that might have helped her to keep moving. The death of her sister (2007), her brother John (2010) and her cousin Janet (2011)further increased her awareness of life’s diminishments, and neurological degeneration eventually restricted her conversation to retelling experiences from all the stages of her life.
In her innate modesty, this loveable, dogged woman of deep faith would probably be surprised to learn how much and how widely she was loved and appreciated by those to whom she was a loyal friend and companion whose wisdom, quirky humour and understated goodness they treasured.
May she rest in peace.