Clara Driscoll

Driscoll came to Austin through her husband, Henry Hulme (Hal) Sevier, whom she married in 1906 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, where he was financial editor of the New York Sun. After her father died in 1914 they moved to Austin, and Sevier established a daily newspaper, the Austin American. She spent two years in Santiago while he was ambassador to Chile; after their 1935 return they separated, and she resumed her maiden name. In politics she promoted John Nance Garner for president in 1939, then backed Roosevelt's fourth-term effort at the bitter 1944 state convention.

What the plaque says

Clara Driscoll (April 2, 1881 - July 17, 1945) Patriot, philanthropist, writer, public figure. Born at St.Mary's, Refugio County; daughter of Robert and Julia Fox Driscoll, and descendant of a hero of San Jacinto; was educated in Texas, New York and France. In 1903 came her finest hour. When the public was shocked at plans for destroying The Alamo in San Antonio, she saved the shrine by buying it to give the State of Texas time to redeem and preserve it. In 1905-06 she published two novels, "The Girl of La Gloria" and "In The Shadow of The Alamo", and had on Broadway a musical comedy, "Mexicana". In 1922 organized the Pan-American Round Table in Austin; served as Democratic National Committee woman from Texas,1928-1944; was president of Daughters of the Republic of Texas, the Big Bend Park Association, and Corpus Christi Bank and Trust Company. This headquarters building of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs is a monument to her generosity, for her 1939 gift of $92,000 paid off debts against it. In 1943 she gave her home, Laguna Gloria, to the Texas Fine Arts Association, for a museum. She died in Corpus Christi, leaving the bulk of her estate to a foundation for the care of crippled and diseased children. Outstanding Women of Texas Series, 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harry Ransom Center — 0.5 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.7 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.0 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 1.1 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Robert Lee "R.L" Moore — 0.2 mi
• Site of Edward Mandell House Home — 0.4 mi
• All Saints' Episcopal Church — 0.6 mi
• Rebecca Kilgore Stuart Red — 0.7 mi