Tara Lamport-Stokes

Tara Lamport-Stokes, 79, passed away March 11, 2022, at the Bailey Family Center for Caring in St. Augustine with her husband, Mark Lamport-Stokes, by her side.

She was born in Washington D.C. to Eli Abbott Jr. and Frances Guthrie Turner, and attended several local schools across the country (her civil engineer father moved around almost every year with his job) before she majored in sociology and minored in English at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.

 

She married Thomas McCorvey Stevens II in February 1961 and gave birth to daughters Lacie Walker, in November 1963, and Kathryn Garrett, in September 1966. She divorced Thomas Stevens and married William Robert (Bob) Evans Jr. in 1971, before giving birth to her son Robert Evans in February 1973.

 

Tara lived a life full of compassion and adventure. After working as a department store buyer for Filene’s of Boston and then for Bullock’s from 1975 to 1981, she moved with her family to Saudi Arabia where she founded the Road Runners – a group of women who jogged in the desert. She worked as an interior decorator and designed rooms in several of the royal palaces, while also doing both residential and commercial work for American firms Mobil Oil and Rockwell International. She spent part of her life living in a monastery in India, both practicing her religion, the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and aiding Tibetan refugees.
After divorcing Bob in 1988, Tara worked as a design consultant for Blums of Boca Raton and was accepted for membership in the American Society of Interior Designers before she changed careers in 1990 and joined Club Corporation of America as a membership director. She lived at the Buddhist monastery in South Florida where she was the caretaker and student of Venerable Lama Chimed Namgyal. He was a beloved father figure to Tara.

 

She remained in Florida, working for Club Corporation of America at The Governors Club in Palm Beach and then at Monarch Country Club in Palm City, before she moved to South Africa in 1995, as membership director at Mount Edgecombe Country Club outside Durban. It was there in 1996 that Tara met her love Mark, who became her third husband, in 2000, after they had relocated to London.

 

Tara again made a career shift, joining Club Corporation of Asia and in late 1998 she and Mark moved to Moscow where she worked for a year at the Monolith Family City Club. Although she continued to make several more trips back to Moscow over the next four years, she and Mark made their base in England where she worked for Club Corporation of Asia at Brocket Hall, an elegant Georgian stately home just north of London.

 

After Mark had a job transfer from London to Los Angeles in late 2005, Tara began working as a realtor in LA where she dabbled in painting and writing book manuscripts. She also spent a lot of time doing charitable work in the inner-city.
A keen runner and tennis player, Tara competed in several marathons over the years, regularly attended the gym and she made a memorable 17-day trek up to Mount Everest Base Camp in the 1980s. She loved to hike and she and husband Mark covered long sections of the Cotswold Way, the South Downs Way and the South West Coast Path while they lived in England.
Tara is survived by her husband of 21 years, Mark; her daughters Lacie and Kathryn; her son Robert; her grandchildren James, Annabel, Parker, Pierce and Bentley; her great-grandchild Florie; and her twin brother, Guthrie Turner Abbott.

 

Tara's Buddhist funeral and cremation was held on Friday, March 18, at St Johns Family Funeral Home where her son Robert (in Tibetan) and her husband Mark (in English) served as co-officiants for the ceremony.

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Any donations in Tara’s honor can be made out to "PBC" (Padmasambhava Buddhist Center) and mailed to:

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Padma Samye Ling
618 Buddha Highway
Sidney Center, NY 13839.

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Alternatively, people can make online donations in Tara's honor via:
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=M9JSV7TNV399U

 

 

To watch the funeral ceremony, click here:

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