Barbara Pardee last saw her friend Carol Clifton around August 2025. 

Clifton hadn’t left her Dusty Trails apartment in months. She needed oxygen at that point and was self-conscious about the size of her tank. But once inside Pardee’s car, she didn’t want to go home. As they drove, Clifton pointed out old homes, old stories, old neighbors from 56 years of living in the Chilkat Valley. 

They went out to Mud Bay and passed by John Svenson’s art studio. 

“He saw me and we’re friends. But then he saw Carol and he just came right over,” Pardee said. “She rolled down her window and those two talked for at least 30 minutes. They just talked up a storm. She was just that way with everybody. If you were her friend, you were always her friend.” 

Clifton died Feb. 27 in Juneau after doctors discovered an advanced lung mass following a January fall.  She was 88 years old.  

Clifton and her twin brother were born Aug. 15, 1937, in Los Angeles. She was one of five children born to Finnish immigrants Emil William Hakkila and Frances Lavalle Hakkila. 

After high school, she moved to Fairbanks to work as a waitress in a cafe run by the mother of her childhood best friend, Gail Hay. 

“Alaska had just become a state and it seemed safe enough,” her son, Kim Clifton, said. “So off she went. And I’m sure it was quite the journey in 1959.” 

There, she met her future husband Jerry Clifton, and the couple eventually settled in Haines in 1969. They raised six children: Jerry, Kim, Van, Christine, Kelly, and Ralph. 

Kim said Carol worked at, and loved, being a good mom. With six children, the inevitable fight would break out and she would referee the situation to get everyone to calm down and make peace with one another. 

Clifton was always reaching for positivity, which, when combined with her quick humor, was a powerful tool. “Now I understand it to be something where … it was like a daily practice for her,” he said. 

The family  eventually bought three acres across from Portage Cove where Jerry built a three-story home overlooking the campground. Carol set up an easel in the corner of the house. 

“She was always painting something,” Kim said. “She’d get out her little palette and with all the colors and it was just part of where we were living. Part of the decor you might say.”

Pardee said when she first became aware of Clifton, it was from the paintings on small pans hanging at a local cafe. 

Pardee said it was fun to watch Carol’s artistic talent grow from small gold pans to large murals on the wall at the Captain’s Choice Motel. 

“She really studied it,” Pardee said. “Once she took me into the back bedroom and she had every art magazine and all of her art books. She said, ‘This is my college education right here.’”

Pardee said she will miss the depth that Carol brought to their friendship. Her intellectual curiosity led to constant reinvention. 

“She loved to learn. She never stopped, ever,” Pardee said. “You always admire somebody like that.” 

Clifton’s paintings often started with a trip up the Haines Highway, where she photographed  landscapes and wildlife. Eventually she became known for those photos as well, said longtime friend, Teresa Land. Land met Clifton in 1973 when asked to play piano in her home studio. 

“She thought I was going to play a two-bit thing, but … I just let loose,” playing a concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, Land said. 

It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship built on music, art and gardening.  

Friends say creativity spilled into every corner of Clifton’s life, from towering nasturtiums at her Beach Road home, to handmade Christmas cards, embroidery and carved fishing corks she gifted to family. 

She seemed to find joy in using her talents to make life brighter for others, her son said. And, for many in Haines, that included creations that emerged from her kitchen. 

“She loved making cream puffs and dropping by and surprising folks,” Kim said. “They were always little masterpieces, her cream puffs are just legendary.” 

Over time, Clifton became Haines’ de facto cake maker — something nearly every friend mentioned. Friends described them as  fluffy, textured, highly stylized: they could have flowers, pearls, ribbons, you name it. She also made puff pastries and a special almond bread for Christmas. 

“That stuff that people don’t like to make themselves but they like to eat,” Pardee said.

Alongside all of that creative energy Clifton used humor to connect with her friends, teasing them, making them laugh. 

“She called it loving on them,” Pardee said. “She would tell you the truth and she was not afraid to give you a barb if she thought you needed it.’ 

She also took great joy in telling people about her faith, something that deepened immensely in spring 1981, according to Kim. 

The family spent much of their early time in Haines attending the Presbyterian Church but toward the end of her life, she attended the Haines Christian Center — Assembly of God church. Kim, who is a pastor in the Houston area, said the two bonded over their spirituality. 

“She shared her faith freely with anyone and everyone,” Pardee said. “If you knew Carol Clifton, you knew where she came from, what she believed and what she stood for.” 

In her immediate family Carol was preceded in death by her husband, Jerry, and brothers, Don, Carl and Ralph Hakkila. 

Carol is survived by her six children—Jerry, Kim, Van, Christine (Clifton-Thornton), Kelly and Ralph Clifton — as well as her sister, Pennie Peterson, eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held July 3, 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Haines Christian Center. 

A retrospective showing of her paintings at the Haines Sheldon Museum with an opening reception is scheduled for Friday, May 1.