Mariann Clark accomplished a lot in her 93 years as a nurse, executive, mentor, mother, wife and shoe model.  

Four years ago when she retired from Iowa Methodist Medical Center, “it took about five people to replace her,” Eric Crowell explained at Clark’s memorial service on March 20.  

For 17 years Crowell worked as president and chief executive of UnityPoint, the parent company of Des Moines’ Methodist hospital, where Clark was the chief recruiter of doctors and nurses. 

Crowell told how Clark, a Marshalltown High School cheerleader, became a pediatric nurse during the 1950s and went on to become the hospital’s most respected manager.

“I may have had the title of chief executive, but I really reported to Mariann,” Crowell said.

“She was one heck of a spitfire of a lady” and the rarest of leaders, a boss with whom virtually everyone got along and admired, Crowell said 

“My fondest memory,” said Dr. Ken Cheyne, “was that when you were in Mariann’s presence, you were special.” 

“So many times, there would be a line of people outside her office. I don’t care if you were a housekeeper, a transfer, a nurse or doctor, everyone loved talking to Mariann,” said fellow nurse Jane Noble.

“The first time I met Mariann,” Noble said, “was over 45 years ago when I was working in the ER. I was scared to death, but she came up to me and put me under her wing. She said, ‘They probably taught you these things when you were in school but I know a better way to do it.’

“And it was true. She taught me so, so much.” 

“I loved the way she always looked so elegant in her white uniform,” Noble said, confiding: “One of the nurses said the reason Mariann wanted to be a nurse was because she looked really good in white.” 

Clark was only 5 feet, 2 inches tall and never weighed more than 110 pounds but was “always dressed to the nines.” Noble said.  

“She was this tiny, vivacious dynamo,” said Dr. Karen Gerdes, a pediatric intensive care physician recruited by Clark, who became a close friend and travel companion. 

Gerdes recalled a rainstorm in Monaco when Clark, umbrella in hand, appeared to be lifted off the ground, “our very own Mariann Mary Poppins.” 

In addition to recruiting medical professionals, Gerdes said, Clark planned events big and small for hospital employees and their families, “personally picking out gifts” for the occasions.

Growing up in Marshalltown, “my mom was a daddy’s girl,” who loved the clothes her own mother made because they made her stand out from the rest of the girls,” Clark’s daughter Heidi  Owens recalled during the memorial service.

She said her mother was a great cook, who prepared food intuitively without recipes, an art she learned from her own mother. 

“When we were children, my mom always had fresh baked cookies, warm rolls and butter, or miniature lemon meringue pies waiting for us after school,” Owens added. “She was a great mother and nanny.”  

And she was a shoe model.

Husband Bob Clark said Mariann’s foot modeling career “began when a shoe salesman, who I think she met as a patient, looked down at her lovely size 6½ foot and asked her to model at an upcoming event.”

She did, and before long she was modeling footwear for Younkers, the New Utica and other downtown department stores.

“Mariann liked it because she got paid in shoes,” said Bob Clark.