Maura Clarke was born on January 13, 1931, in Douglaston, New York, and lived in Queens, New York. She joined Maryknoll in 1950. In 1959 she was sent to Nicaragua where she taught school and did pastoral work in a Capuchin parish in Siuna, a remote city in eastern Nicaragua.

On August 5, 1980, Maura Clark went to El Salvador to explore the possibility of working there. She was quickly immersed in the emergency work among the victims of the repression.

On the evening of December 2, 1980, Sister Dorothy, and Cleveland lay missionary, Jean Donovan and Maryknoll Sisters, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke were abducted, beaten, raped, and murdered by Salvadoran army soldiers. Their bodies were discovered in a ditch by the side of the road and buried by peasants in a common grave marked by a cross made of twigs.

Sister Maura Clarke is now buried in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens County, New York, USA.

Source of information: en.wikipedia.org, ursulines-roman-union.org