Marion Dunbar Clemens died peacefully in her Lagrange, NY home on January 18, 2026 at the age of 102.

Born in Yonkers, New York on September 27, 1923, to Henrietta (Clark) MacPherson and Aldon MacPherson, she married David Alonzo Clemens. Together, they left Yonkers, NY and moved to Dutchess County in 1975.

A graduate of Katharine Gibbs School in New York City in the 1940s, Marion worked for the Otis Elevator Company and the First National Bank, both in Yonkers, Walter E. Heller and Company, a commercial banking company on 42nd St., and she was an Executive Secretary for Oceanic Investment Corporation on 5th Ave., both in NYC, before taking time off to raise her children.

After receiving her Masters Degree from Fordham University, she began her second career in Special Education in 1981, at an age when most people retire. She worked for the Wappingers Central School District as a Special Education Teacher at Fishkill Elementary School and later at Gayhead Elementary School, until her retirement in 1993, at the age of 70. Her love for teaching children with special needs was evidenced by the love and respect her students and their parents showed her throughout her career.

Marion was a great conversationalist who could converse on any topic and to whom people would gravitate. She loved to write poetry, was always impeccably and fashionably dressed, was caring, empathetic, intelligent, fair-minded and creative. She was also a great cook and a phenomenal baker. Marion was a voracious reader who read thousands of books during her lifetime and encouraged others to read. A former equestrian whose love of horses never waned, she enriched the life of anyone who was fortunate enough to know her, especially her daughter, with whom she shared a powerful bond.

Her beloved husband, David, predeceased her in 2000, as did her son, David William Clemens, in 2001. Her daughter-in-law, Francine (Conti) Clemens, who she met when Francine was only 16 years of age and thought of as a daughter, predeceased her in 2022, and Frank Pallet, husband of her granddaughter, Michelle, a man she admired and called her "grandson", passed in 2021.

She is survived by her son, Thomas Aldon Clemens (Francine) of Lagrangeville, and a daughter, Shari Ellen Clemens of Lagrange, her granddaughters, Nicole Fejka of Millbrook, NY, Michelle (Frank) Pallet of Wappingers Falls, NY, Ashley Clemens, of Palm Coast, FL and her five great grandchildren. Also surviving are her nieces, Sandra Bulbert Ward of Cape Cod, MA and Patricia Bulbert Masucci and her husband, Nicholas, of Hopewell Junction, NY and their families.

A Celebration of Life will be held on May 16, 2026, at 11:00 am, at the McHoul Funeral Home, Inc., 895 Route 82, Hopewell Junction, NY.