‘Teddy Bear Lady’ wove life of craft and connection

June Clark – sticking to her knitting and spinning

June Clark, who will turn 87 in a month, has been a charitable spinner and knitter for more than seven decades.

Devonport identity June Clark, well known for knitting for charitable causes, was farewelled this week.

“I have been spinning and knitting for others since the Second World War, when it was mostly scarves and socks for the Navy boys. I was still at Sacred Heart Boarding School in Wellington then, where the older girls taught me how to do it,” she says. Once she was married, a friend gave her a spinning wheel and there has been no stopping her since.

A familiar face around the village for three decades, Clark died peacefully at 93, some five months after the death of her husband of 72 years, Paul.

Known as the Teddy Bear Lady for the toys she crafted, she was also a skilled spinner and weaver.

The couple, who had six children, moved from their home in Flagstaff Tce into care at Lady Allum in Milford in November last year.

Daughter Penny Clark said her community-minded mother had been chatty and busy until the end.

“She was out for lunch at the garden centre last Friday,” she told the Flagstaff last week.

The couple retired to Devonport in 1991, having previously farmed sheep in Argyll East in Hawke’s Bay.

“She loved being part of the community,” her daughter recalled.

For the last 20 years of her life, Clark enjoyed going out for a daily coffee, meeting up with other locals each morning in an informal group.

She was a parishioner at St Francis de Sales and All Souls Church.

A long-time participant in the Devonport

Spinners and Weavers group, Clark took up spinning soon after marriage, when a friend gave her a spinning wheel.

In 2016, she told the Flagstaff she was soon hooked and liked to spin wool daily. She also encouraged group members in

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the art of weaving.

“She was very inspirational,” said group member Sue Ellen.

Some of her work was exhibited. The group continues today, having moved from meeting at former church St Augustine’s when Clark joined it, to the Lions Club den on Empire Rd.

Ellen said the loss of older members was a challenge, and the group wanted to keep their legacy alive by passing on skills to new generations.

Clark was also a prolific knitter, from when she sent off socks and scarves for servicemen in World War II, to making warm clothes for her family, and later teddy bears for children’s causes using the wool she spun at home.

Groups she gave to included Plunket, St John, Mission without Borders and Middlemore Children’s Hospital. She could make a teddy bear in a day.

Born Thyra (June) Band on the 23 May 1929, Clark loved conversation and meeting people.

She also had a playful side. When quizzed about wearing a brace on her ankle, she would joke she got an injury playing soccer.

Clark is survived by her children: Robyn, Andrew, Jo, Kim, Kirsty and Penny, along with 11 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.