Clara Hale

Clara McBride Hale (April 1, 1905 – December 18, 1992), also known as Mother Hale, was an American humanitarian. She founded the Hale House Center, a home for unwanted children and children who were born addicted to drugs.

Personal life
Hale was born April 1, 1905 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. She moved to Philadelphia her father died when she was a toddler. Her mother could not pay for her and her siblings, her mother took in lodgers to pay for her family. Clara Hale's mother died when she was sixteen. 

She met Thomas Hale in high school and when they graduated they went to New York together and started a floor waxing company. Thomas and Clara Hale had two children named Lorraine and a son Nathan. Clara Hale adopted a boy named Kenneth the time Thomas Hale was going through cancer and died at the age of twenty seven. 

When a drug addicted mom was at her door step she asked if Hale would take her drug addicted baby. Hale took in the baby and the Hale house began.

Hale died on December 18, 1992 in New York City from stroke-related complications at the age of 87.

More reading
 Bolden, T. (1998). And Not Afraid to Dare: The Stories of Ten African-American Women. New York: Scholastic Press.
 Italia, B. (1993). Clara Hale: A Mother to Those Who Needed One. Minnesota: Abdo & Daughters.
 Lanker, B. (1989). I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.
 Pinkney A., & Woock, R.R. (1970). Poverty and Politics in Harlem. New Haven, Conn.: College & University Press.
 Schoener, A. (1968). Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America 1900- 1968. New York: Random House.

References

Other websites
 African American Registry 
 Hale House Center 

Category:1905 births
Category:1992 deaths
Category:Deaths from stroke
Category:Humanitarians
Category:American activists
Category:People from North Carolina