As the daughter of a minister in Niagara Falls, NY, Marcia Clayton was a people person from the start. She was the youngest of six children raised during the Great Depression. Her father would often invite community members for dinner, making her home and her heart feel full. "I love people,” she says. “People and children.”
She began working as soon as she was able, taking a job at a local department store and running summer programs for children at town playgrounds. Throughout her schooling she always knew she wanted to work with children and eventually attended Skidmore College with the intention of opening a nursery school. She also studied for two years at Mass General Hospital for children and adults with learning disabilities.
It was at Skidmore that she met her husband John who was visiting from Dartmouth. It was a prearranged blind date that led to a lifetime of love and happiness. During their sixty-year marriage they were very active, enjoying golf, skiing, tennis, and sailing with their two children and five grandchildren. Marcia became a teacher, holding a long career in special education at Derby Academy in Hingham, MA.
When John passed away in 2013, Marcia found the independent living at Thornton Oaks Retirement Community allowed her to live closer to her daughter, a Bowdoin alumni living in coastal Maine. At Thornton Oaks, she enjoyed the companionship of her neighbors, as well as myriad cultural events, activities, and educational opportunities.
After a brief hospitalization in 2016, Marcia’s family felt that she needed a higher level of care and moved her next door to Mid Coast Senior Health’s assisted living community, Thornton Hall. With such close proximity to Thornton Oaks, she is still able to visit her friends, attend lectures, and play an occasional bridge game, yet has the comfort and security of 24-hour nursing care, medication management, and a host of amenities and services that keep her and her family worry-free.
At Thornton Hall, Marcia is again surrounded by a community of people, allowing her to live healthy, age well, and enjoy her meals with a full table of friends.