Luise “Sue” Cork
April 3, 1919 - March 9, 2017
Luise (Sue) Helena Cork, a long-time resident of the Montclair and Piedmont areas, died Thursday the 9th of March at her daughter’s home in Marin.
Born in 1919 in Boston, MA, to Wilhelm and Else Junker, Luise grew up in New England spending summers at Goose Rocks Beach in Maine. She received a BA degree at Boston University and taught high school English and Art in the Stockbridge, MA, area, where she met her future husband Bruce Cork. Their honeymoon took them to Berkeley, CA, where Bruce was to work for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Except for a year in Geneva Switzerland and a few years in Illinois, she lived in the Berkeley area for the remainder of her life.
Luise loved to be involved with people. She was a master organizer and was always planning explorations, travels or gettogethers for both family and friends. Somehow she always found time for all these activities even when raising her 4 children, and then with helping nurture her grandkids.
Her annual summertime excursions back East to visit relatives in the Mid-West and New England were memorable. Many of the trips were done using the family station wagon. This enabled first hand views of our country including overnight camping in National and State Parks. She was a true explorer.
Luise was actively involved with the UC Berkeley Section Club, where she organized and participated in the Adventure group and was on the International Student and Scholar Committee until shortly before her death. She and her husband sponsored the families of several international scholars who became lifelong friends and correspondents.
Luise was an artist who painted in a variety of media. While her art was mostly for personal and family consumption, she was also an avid patron of the arts and supported many art and performance programs in the area.
Luise was very athletic. She was a gifted ice skater and loved dancing. Later in life, she enjoyed spending many weeks each year skiing or hiking with her family in the Sierras and the Rockies. Her voice and sense of rhythm was extraordinaire; should we all have her talent.
Luise is survived by her 4 children, Carl, Susan, Chris and Fred, their spouses, 11 grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren; her brother Wilhelm; and her sister Hildegaard. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bruce, and two sisters, Else and Annemarie. She will always be remembered for her ‘joie de vivre’.
The Memorial will be scheduled at a future date. In lieu of flowers, it is suggested that memorial gifts may be made to the University Section Club, Tang Center at UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-4300 (https://sectionclub.berkeley.edu/).