Hale, Clara, 1905-1992

Clara McBride Hale (April 1, 1905 – December 18, 1992), also known as Mother Hale, was an American humanitarian who founded the Hale House Center, a home for disadvantaged children and children who were born addicted to drugs; Clara McBride was born April 1, 1905, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Clara married shortly after high school and moved to New York City where she studied business administration, cleaned, and worked as a domestic. She was 27 when her husband died.[1] She had three children, Nathan, Lorraine[2] and adopted son Kenneth.[3] In 1938, her husband died from cancer, and Hale struggled to support her children through the Great Depression. Her rough life made it hard to financially support and care for her three children, consequently she had to find a job. Hale cleaned houses and continued her job as a janitor, laboring day and night to make ends meet.

Eventually she retired from these jobs to spend more time with her children. She stayed home with her children and in order to be as big a part of their lives as possible, Hale opened her own home daycare, initially keeping the children while their parents worked during the day. The children that she cared for found her home to be such a caring and loving environment they did not want to go home at the end of the day, most began to stay full-time only seeing their mothers on the weekends.[4] She used her home as a day care for other struggling parents which later led her to become a foster parent. In the 1940s, she provided short-term and long-term care for community children in her home. She also found permanent homes for homeless children and taught parents essential parenting skills. Hale became a foster mother and got a license and took in 7-8 children at a time. By 1947-1968, she had taken care of over 40 foster children ...