Clara Hale

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.

Early life 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. She had three children, Nathan, Lorraine and adopted son Kenneth. 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. 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 1968, she had taken care of over 40 foster children.

Jobs Hale was living in Harlem, New York, where she retired from working as a domestic and started her work by beginning to help addicted children in 1969. Although Hale had originally opened her house as a way of making a living, it eventually led her to find her life calling. She took babies addicted to Heroin into her home, and within months, she was caring for 22 infants.

This started in 1969 when Clara Hale's daughter, Lorraine, brought a mother and child who were addicted to drugs to Hale's home. She later got a home license as a "child care facility" in 1970, called the Hale House. A few years later Hale purchased a larger building, a 5 story home so there could be more space and more room to fit more, and in 1975 she was able to attain a license in child-care. It was officially known as Hale House. After that time, Hale devoted her life to caring for needy children. She took in children, free of charge, who were addicted to drugs and helped them through their addictive periods. She would raise the children as if they were her own and once they were healthy she would help to find families interested in adoption. She took it upon herself to make sure the families were a correct fit and even in some cases turned families down if she thought they could not provide a good enough home for the child. She eventually helped over 1,000 drug addicted babies and young children who were born addicted to drugs, children born with HIV, and children whose parents had died of AIDS.

After her death in 1992, Hale's work was continued by her daughter, Dr. Lorraine Hale. The climate at Hale House clearly changed with Mother Hale's death. In 2001, the Hale House was under investigation for skirting the law and misuse of money solicited from the public. An interim board found what it called credible evidence that Hale House engaged in transactions involving self-dealing and other conflicts of interest, resulting in the waste of corporate assets and the violation of its legal and contractual obligations. Dr. Lorraine Hale was subsequently forced out amid reports of financial mismanagement. She and her husband were arrested, charged with using more than $1 million in donations to make home improvements, lend money to relatives and prop up an off-Broadway flop. Although never convicted, she was removed by the new Hale House board. Unfortunately, the House and it's extended programs have since then been defunct.

Hale's motivation Hale's father died when she was a baby. This left her mother alone to raise Hale and her four siblings. Her mother placed a very high importance on parenting and being available to her children during their development. She supported her children through cooking for others and also allowing boarders to stay in their home. It seems that Hale gained this same love and appreciation for parenting. Hale claimed that everything she was able to accomplish was due to her mother and the parenting that she witnessed as a child. Growing up in Harlem, the mid 1900s didn't allow for a promising future. During this time period it was exceptionally hard to receive a good education. In 1962, 96 percent of Harlem's students were African American. Due to the racial issues at the time there were very few teachers who were willing to teach and provide the students with sufficient education. According to test scores, by the end junior high level the majority of students were more than two and a half years behind the average New York City student. Hale recognized the importance that an education provided and also the need for an opportunity to receive one.

Hale also put a great deal of value into her religious upbringing. She was raised as a part of a Baptist church. It can also be suggested that her faith in God and strong moral upbringing had a lot to do with the behavior that she displayed throughout her life. It was stated by Hale herself that through her childhood she faced many hard times but it was due to her Christian upbringing that she was able to succeed. One major accomplishment in Hale's life was being the first in her family to graduate from high school. This was not seen to be a regular occurrence during her time period but due to the morals and ethics that Hale had learned throughout her time in the church this was something she expected of herself. This advanced education may have also had part to do with the lifestyle that she would come to choose. It gave her an appreciation for ethnic and social class differences.

Awards In 1985, then-President Ronald Reagan honored Clara Hale as an American hero in his State of the Union Address. In 1986, the Women's International Center gave Hale the Living Legacy Award which "honor(s) women for their great contributions to humanity".

Honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority Member of the American Commission on Drug Free Schools NAACP Image Award in the 1980s. Candace Award for Humanitarianism, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1990.