Clara Isabelle Hack Hasbrouck

Clara Isabelle Hack Hasbrouck, age 93, finished her journey through this life on September 21, 2023, with her husband Charles Booth Hasbrouck, Jr. by her side. She was very fortunate to have great nurses and loving caregivers. In December of 2022 Charles and Clara celebrated 67 years of marriage.

Clara Isabelle Hack was born on January 16, 1930, to Floyd and Edythe Hack at their home in Fayette County, Iowa; the second of five children. She received her B.A. from Iowa State Teachers College and was both a primary school science teacher and executive for the Girl Scouts of America prior to meeting and marrying Charles in Lincoln, Nebraska. They relocated to Kingsport in 1956.

After raising three boys, she started as librarian at Holston Middle School, having just earned a master’s degree in library science, and then progressed to being responsible for all public-school libraries in Sullivan County. She also served as Chairman of the Watauga Regional Library Association. Following her “retirement” she taught library science at East Tennessee State University for several years and has an annual award named for her from the Tennessee Association of School Librarians. On campus at ETSU, students affectionately referred to her as “the Legend.” Many of them unsuccessfully petitioned the university to keep her course in-person when it was becoming popular for universities to shift from classroom to online learning.

The first woman elder at the Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church in 1970, Clara was never hesitant to speak up for what she knew to be true and taught Sunday school by facilitating lively discussions.  She was a Girl Scout troop leader and a den mother for Boy Scouts. A prolific seamstress who even made wedding dresses for some of her former Girl Scouts, she was resourceful and creative. She was a researcher and contributor to “The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (2006),” having already published articles during her collegiate years in Iowa while also breaking ground as a coed photographer for men’s varsity sports.

As an active Boy Scout Adult Leader, she recently went to Davy Crockett Scout Camp in Rogersville, TN for two summer trips with Troop 48 and Scoutmaster Charles. Camp Hasbrouck was an annual event for all her grandchildren at her Rock Springs Road “house on the hill”. Clara and Charles raised thousands of gladioli and shared them freely with friends and with local assisted living facilities.

Clara was a great listener, completing a lifetime achievement recognition at Kingsport’s Contact Concern, and she spent much of her later years visiting aging friends. She loved traveling and was able to visit 50 states and all continents, including a trip to Antarctica. Early annual family travels started with highly efficient and organized packing for five people. Taking all the essential tent-camping gear in a sky blue 1964 Mercury station wagon, each summer’s highlight was a weeks-long trip throughout the US and Canada. She cooked almost every meal, including the fish the boys caught. She baked a lot and had a saying that “if you pick it, I will cook it”.

Survivors include her husband Charles, sisters Fern Guild and June Wilkins, brother David (Brenda) Hack, sons Chuck (Dianne), Bruce (Teri), and Keith (Melanie), eleven grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren in a still-growing family. To say that she touched lots of people through her many endeavors would be an understatement. We are lucky that her kind and loving nature will live forever through us all.

A service in her memory will be held at Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church, Kingsport on Friday October 20 at 11:00am. The family will receive friends at the Church before the service at 10:00am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Sullivan County Public Library at www.scpltn.org or Cure Alzheimer’s at www.curealz.org.