Adelaide Clark Cloyd

Adelaide Clark Cloyd, devoted wife, mother and teacher, died on July 21, 2016, from complications involving cancer. She was 82. Adelaide, the only child of Josephine Clay Estes of Newland, North Carolina, was born July 24, 1933. She grew up in Newland with her mother and stepfather, Edward Clark, and attended Peace Junior College in Raleigh and then Queens College in Charlotte. Following her graduation, she remained in Charlotte to teach second and third grade at Elizabeth Elementary School. The parents of one of her students introduced her to their close friend Bob Cloyd. The two quickly fell in love and married a year later in 1957. Shortly following the birth of their only son Clark in 1959, they moved to Decatur, Georgia, where they lived for the next half-century. Adelaide returned to teaching, the career she loved, once her son began school, working first in private kindergartens and then in the Decatur City system until she retired in the 90’s. Students still remember her fondly as an enthusiastic and supportive teacher. Adelaide was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church as a communicant at St. Bartholomew’s for twenty years and at St. Luke’s for the past thirty, singing in the choir, working on the Altar Guild and helping with children’s instruction. At St. Luke’s she and Bob established what came to be called Children’s Chapel, a service that introduced children to the patterns of worship they so relished in the Episcopal liturgy. Her affection for and interest in children remained keen well beyond her career in the classroom. Adelaide and Bob showered their grandchildren, Will and Charlotte, with love, helping to instill their own values of care, concern and duty in the two. Adelaide shared her quick wit, love of laughter and fondness for conversation with all she met. As a cousin said of her recently, “She looked straight into your eyes when you spoke. There was never a question that you had her full attention. In fact, there was never a question that you would give her the same courtesy.” Her family, including son Clark, grandchildren Will and Charlotte, daughter-in-law Catherine, and cousins in North and South Carolina, will remember her lovingly and with a smile. The funeral service, followed by interment in the garden and reception in the Parish Hall, will occur Thursday, July 28, at 2:00 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 435 Peachtree St., NE, Atlanta. Online condolences may be expressed at www.wagesandsons.com