Get-Well Wishes for Elizabeth Clarke

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Joseph Morris

President at Lincoln Legal Foundation

Born and reared in Gary, Indiana, Joseph Morris earned his A.B. and J.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He held several positions in the Reagan administration, and heads the Lincoln Legal Foundation — “individual liberties, limited, constitutional government.” He is also on the board of advisers of the conservative Federalist Society, and is a former managing editor of The American Spectator. Over the years, he has held leadership positions in the Republican Party, including president of the United Republican Fund Illinois.

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The nearly-centenarian Elizabeth Clarke is extremely ill after a serious fall and is convalescing at home in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Mrs. Clarke is a doyenne of the conservative movement in the Chicago area, a leader of Eagle Forum and the National Federation of Independent Business, and a staunch supporter of the Lincoln Legal Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the Illinois Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the United Republican Fund of Illinois, the Chicago Conservative Conference, and countless other pro-freedom, pro-market, pro-family, and pro-life causes and groups in Illinois and across America.

Mrs. Clarke and her late husband, Edwin, were fixtures at nearly every conservative, libertarian, and allied meeting, conference, symposium, rally, and celebration held in the Chicago area over the last many decades. As long as health permitted they regularly attended the monthly center-right coalition meeting of the Fort Dearborn Group.

Just before the Fourth of July two years ago, in 2014, when Mrs. Clarke was 96, I had the privilege of interviewing her for an oral history project of the Heartland Institute about her remarkable life and about the changes that she had seen in the world since her birth near the end of World War I. 

Elizabeth Clark, age 96, discusses the incredible changes the world has experienced over the past 90 years with Heartland friend Joe Morris. In part two of this two-part series, Clark discusses how education has changed over the years.

Heartland has posted the interviews with Mrs. Clarke in the podcast archive of its website at www.Heartland.org.

Part 1 can be heard here:  https://www.heartland.org/podcasts/2014/07/02/elizabeth-clark-96-years-young

Part 2 can be heard here:  https://www.heartland.org/podcasts/2014/07/03/elizabeth-clark-age-96-discusses-incredible-changes-world-has-experienced-over-p

I am sure that Mrs. Clarke would welcome cards, letters, and other messages of cheer as she struggles with illness.  She is still quite mentally active and alert, and enjoys having messages read to her by her family, friends, and caregivers.