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.

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.

Although Hale had originally opened her house as a way of making a living, it eventually led her to find her life calling.

At the age of 65 is when Hale began to take children in who were born addicted to their mother's drug habits during pregnancy.

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.

Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Senior Minister at Riverside Church where she and her family were members, "She left instructions that there be no sad funerals."

Senator Alfonse D'Amato, former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, U.S. Representative Charles Rangel, Adam Clayton Powell IV, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Dr. Calvin O. Butts, Yoko Ono and her son, Sean Lennon.

This roster shows the scope of respect this extraordinary woman had gained in the world for her work to positively influence so many children, their families and the entire Harlem community.

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.

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.

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.

[12] In 1985, then-President Ronald Reagan honored Clara Hale as an American hero in his State of the Union Address.