Clara Tarte, 90, A Resort Developer Who Also Built Catholic Churches

At age 65, Clara Tarte made her movie-acting debut as the wife of a fisherman in ``Namu the Killer Whale.''

However, the 1966 role was not her claim to fame.

In earlier years, Tarte was well-known for her work in Northwest Catholic circles. And in later years, she became known as the matriarch of the family that developed the Roche Harbor Resort.

She and her late husband, Rube, developed an old lime plant and company village on San Juan Island into the popular Northwest resort.

For the past five years or so, Tarte had been confined to a wheelchair and less active. She died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 90.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be said at 11 a.m. Friday at the small Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel, perched on a knoll overlooking Roche Harbor. Burial will be in St. Francis Cemetery on San Juan Island.

The Roche Harbor chapel, like the resort, was largely a product of Clara Tarte's hard work and tenacity.

``She instituted that chapel,'' said her daughter Teresa Tangney-Kennedy, who maintains residences in both Roche Harbor and Edmonds.

Shortly after the Tartes bought Roche Harbor, with its 4,000 acres and 12 miles of coastline, in 1956, Clara Tarte started transforming a former Methodist church into Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel.

She sold a piece of property her parents had left her and put the money into the church.

Then she set about furnishing it, partly through donations. Holy Family Church in Kirkland gave her two altars when it built a new church, and the pews came from Holy Family Church in White Center.

Later, the church's carillon bells were installed as a memorial to her husband, who died in 1968, and to her son-in-law, Bob Tangney, who was killed in a Fourth of July fireworks accident in 1971.

Long before Roche Harbor, though, Clara Tarte had been active in building Catholic churches.

She helped built St. Theresa's Parish in Seattle and later Sacred Heart Parish in Bellevue, her daughter said.

Born in Seattle, Tarte was raised in Ketchikan, Alaska, where her parents operated a restaurant and were instrumental in establishing the first Catholic church there.

As a Bellevue resident, Clara Tarte, who became known as ``Sarge,'' an affectionate term coined by a daughter-in-law for her habit of giving orders, had been active in many church and garden organizations and had gained a reputation for raising money for Catholic and charity organizations.

She founded and presided over several Catholic clubs and altar societies, and was appointed by the Most Rev. Thomas Connolly, archbishop of Seattle, to serve on the board of Catholic Children's Services.

A Clara Tarte Circle of the Association for Catholic Childhood, working for orphans and unwed mothers, was named for her.

Rube and Clara Tarte lived in Bellevue's Yarrow Point from 1943 until they bought Roche Harbor to have a cooperative enterprise that would enable the entire Tarte family to stay and work together - to build on and develop through succeeding generations.

But the resort was sold last year to a Friday Harbor businessman, and the remaining Roche Harbor property was more recently sold to a Seattle businessman.

Clara Tarte served on the San Juan County Fair board and was a past president of the island's garden club. She also had been historian of the State Federation of Garden Clubs and won countless flower-show awards.

``She was very dynamic,'' her daughter said.

Tangney-Kennedy noted that Rube and Clara Tarte died on the same date in July, and their services were scheduled for the same July date.

Besides Tangney-Kennedy, Tarte is survived by a son, Neil Tarte, Roche Harbor; another daughter, Marylou Halvorson, Seattle; 17 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

The family suggests that remembrances be made to the Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel, Roche Harbor, Wash. 98250.