b'D riscoll is one of the those one-word names that isClara Driscoll (far left) at the Driscoll home at St. Marys on Aransas, 1893.so ingrained in the cultural lexicon of the Coastal Bend that we all know what it meansand that is Driscoll Childrens Hospital, which for those of us who grew up here, likely played some role in our lives as a patient, or a sibling or parent of a patient. Over the hospitals history of almost seventy years, it has earned a reputation of one of the finest pediatric medical facilities in the United States.As decades and generations pass, we are blessed with the lega-cies of those great contributors to our community manifest only in the survival of what they left behind. In whatever dimension Clara Driscoll today surely thrives, its easy to wonder if she knows how many millions of lives that the generosity of her dy-ing wish has saved and made better, this one included.Daniel ODriscoll was a native of Cork County, Ireland, who em-igrated to the United States in pursuit of a life of prosperity and peace in the New World. He ended up following thousands of Irish and German immigrants to Mexican Texas, right in time for the Texas War of Independence from Mexico that started at the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835, looked hopeless after the thirteen-day siege at the Alamo at the beginning of March 1836, but was finally won at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836 in which ODriscoll valiantly served. Davey Crockett fighting the Mexican As a reward for his service, Daniel ODriscoll was deeded 1,200army at the Alamo, March 6, 1836.acres of land in Refugio County, along with a nice tract in Victoria County. In 1837, just a year into the short history of the Republic of Texas, ODriscoll was elected Refugio County Judge and mar-ried fellow Irish immigrant Catherine McGrath Duggan, a widow with three children. The new couple had two sons of their own, Jeremiah and Robert, but as we all know, people just didnt live as long two centuries agoDaniel perished in an accident in 1849 and Catherine died in 1852.Just fourteen and eleven when their mother died, the brothers older half-sister, Ellen, who was married to a Mississippi plan-tation owner, returned to Texas to finish raising the boys. Both served in the Refugio Home Guard Unit during the Civil War, but after the war, the brothers embarked upon the building of a ranching, banking and land development empire with most of their assets located in Nueces County and Corpus Christi.Robert Driscoll (the O dropped from the family name as so many Irish immigrants had) settled with his new bride Julia at Saint Marys of Aransas, today a ghost town near Bayside, on Co-pano Bay. Clara was born April 2, 1881, ten years after her broth-er, Robert, Jr. The only daughter in an unusually small family for the time, Clara was raised a princess, refined socially and educa-tionally as a young lady of distinction and purpose.Clara attended the finest boarding schools, first Mrs. Gregorys School in San Antonio, then the famed Miss Peebles and Miss A.K. Thompsons French and English Boarding School in New York City, and finally the prestigious Chteau de Dieudonne finishing school in Eastern France. After almost of decade of the finest childhood education, Clara Driscoll returned to America speaking four languages fluently, and ready to take on the world.TheCoastalBend.com THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE63'