b'at NAS Corpus Christi during World War II, and today it is home to theDriscoll Childrens Hospital today, which serves over 100,000 headquarters of U.S. Navy Air Training Command and the immense Cor- children per year, many from Mexico and Central America.pus Christi Army Depot.While the Driscoll clan, whose origins trace back to Cork County, Ireland, in the 1830s, was gifted with intelligence, discipline and a strict work ethic, longevity was not among their blessings. Claras grandparents both died in their fifties, her grandmother of an unknown disease and her grandfather in a horse carriage accident. Her mother died at age 56, her uncle at 52 and her brother at age 57. Only Claras father, Robert, Sr., lived into his seventies.Sadly, on July 17, 1945, Clara suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died suddenly in Corpus Christi at age 64. Her body laid in state at the chap-el of the Alamo Mission that she was credited with saving, and she was buried alongside her family members at the Masonic Cemetery in San Antonio.Making news to the very end, Clara Driscoll, who died with no direct heirs, willed most of her vast family fortune to build and operate a free clinic and hospital for crippled, maimed, and diseased children that, un-der the direction of her personal physician, Dr. McIver Furman, opened as Driscoll Foundation Childrens Hospital in 1953. Over the seven decades since, Driscoll has lovingly cared for millions of kids from across Texas and Mexico, was the first facility at which an organ transplant was performed in the Coastal Bend, and is where conjoined twins have been successfully separated. Having always lived with a mis-sion and purpose, Clara Driscolls benevolent legacy places her at the very top of the Legends of the Coastal Bend.TheCoastalBend.com THECOASTALBENDMAGAZINE113'