Alison Clark Fuller left this world on November 10 at her home in San Rafael, California at age 91 due to “complications of old age.”

Alison was born on April 23, 1930 to Dunlap Cameron Clark and Bess McFalls Clark at the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, the younger of two children joining brother Dunlap C. Clark, Jr., then age two. As the Great Depression clobbered banks and bankers, Clark lost his job at Continental Illinois National Bank but was later invited to become president of the newly formed First National Bank of Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1933. The move to Kalamazoo was a happy turn of events for the Clark children, as Alison later described herself as “a child of the Michigan woods,” endlessly exploring the woods and pond near her home. Alison received her schooling at Western Michigan College of Education Training School in Kalamazoo, followed by two years at Kingswood School Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills.

Already a veteran of World War I, Alison’s father was called back to army service in World War II, attaining the rank of colonel. Bess, meanwhile, raised the family in Kalamazoo and supported the war effort through deep involvement in the Red Cross. After the war, the Clark family moved to Piedmont, California when Col. Clark was offered the position of president of the Central Bank of Oakland. Knowing that her parents were moving to California, Alison applied and was accepted to Stanford University.

Alison graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1952 with a BA in English Literature, then moved to San Francisco to work for J. Walter Thompson Advertising. During these years, a friend introduced her to a young mathematics professor at Caltech, F. Brock Fuller, who was visiting friends in San Francisco.

Alison became interested in a teaching career and earned her certificate at San Francisco State College (now SFSU), completing her student teaching at Horace Mann Middle School in San Francisco’s Mission District. Alison then took teaching posts in Southern California — first in Pomona, then Pasadena High School. Each move brought her closer to Brock, who was then living in a cozy cottage on Marengo Street in Pasadena while teaching at Caltech. Romance bloomed between the two educators, and they married in 1957 in Tucson, Arizona. In 1959 they purchased their Mediterranean-style home in Altadena, which served as their base for the busy decades that followed. After Brock’s retirement from Caltech in 1995, the Fullers moved to Marin County to be near their daughter and grandchildren.

Alison’s love of nature took many forms. She was a hands-on home gardener in the Pasadena area and, later, in Marin County. Her interests ranged from organic vegetable gardening to beekeeping to bird and butterfly gardening to showy ornamentals like the massive rose bushes she grew from bare root starts. She adored the wild birds that frequented her garden in Marin County and provided them with food and habitat. She also supported many environmental causes and spent numerous hours volunteering as a docent at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and at Miwok Meadows and Bothin Marsh in Marin County.

Alison was a creative and civically engaged person with many interests over the course of her long life, but three stand out: animals & nature; democracy & voting rights; and poetry.

Alison was a lifelong champion of democratic participation, walking precincts in the Pasadena area to encourage people to vote and serving in many roles, including President, with the Pasadena Area League of Women Voters and on the California State Board of LWV. Alison was proud of having voted in every election for which she was eligible, except one in which her absentee ballot was held up by a postal strike in France.

Alison enjoyed reading poems and studying the lives of poets. Beginning in her early 50’s, she participated for many years in the poetry writing group of Jean P. Burden in Altadena, CA and wrote many poems. Though she never broke into the small world of published poets, Alison self-published a late-life poetry collection entitled Brown Lemmings & Other Creatures in 2014 featuring many poems about animals.

Alison is survived by her daughter, Lynn Fuller, and her grandchildren, Samuel, Zachary, and Claire Bivins. She is predeceased by her husband, Francis Brock Fuller, her brother, Dunlap Clark, and her granddaughter Elizabeth Bivins.

A simple memorial service will be held in San Francisco when the ashes are interred. To receive updates about these plans, please send an email to Lynn[at]cowhollowgardener.net.

In lieu of flowers, Alison may be honored with donations to the League of Women Voters or to WildCare.