When people were at their most vulnerable—sick, poor, about to give birth, desperately lonely—Clara Brown could be trusted. A woman with hands and feet that embodied what it meant to be just, peaceful, good, and free. A woman with a kindly face, tall and strong, who lived out the American virtues perhaps better than any president or founding father, perhaps better than anyone whose bust is preserved in the marble statuary of a namesake library. A woman, too, who saw opportunity for herself and for others and had the fortitude to forge ahead, not knowing where the path would lead.
