Clara Estelle Baumhoff

Clara Estella Zeiss Baumhoff (March 20, 1867 – March 27, 1919) was the founder of the Missouri Division of the International Sunshine Society (ISS); in fourteen years of leadership brought more than twenty-five thousand members into the ISS through her press departments on Sunshine, and by her personal efforts.

Biography Clara Estella Zeiss was born on March 20, 1867, in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Carl Zeiss and Helen E. Dreyer (1840–1907).

Mrs. C. W. Trowbridge was the first State president of the ISS, and Baumhoff acted as treasurer and secretary, also superintendent of junior work. This State Branch was organized in 1902. The USS was founded in 1896, in New York, with eighteen members, by Cynthia Westover Alden. In 1914 the membership numbered over 300,000, and extended to all parts of the world. Of the original members who supported and assisted the Sunshine Sewing School, only the following were living in 1914: Mrs. Wm. E. Warren (who was Mrs. F. M. Biebinger), Mrs. John Conrath, Mrs. W. H. Sturgess, Lola V. Hays, Marcella Keys-Hanaford, Mrs. Jos. Maloney, and Mrs. J. C. Woodson. Baumhoff became the honorary president, while Marcella Keys-Hanaford was the president.

The ISS accomplished a wonderful amount of good in places where the regularly organized charitable associations could not readily reach. They were always quick to respond to appeals for assistance, taking methods for placing the sick and afflicted in immediate touch with the best care and attention from physicians, placing them in hospitals, and rendering any assistance that may be needed in any direction, ranging from temporary relief from poverty to long treatments for chronic cases of disease of body and mind. She is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis.