Mary Frances Williams Clauder knows the routine. She's been a devout Catholic since before she was old enough to know what it meant. And, for 13 years, she's been hanging out at Beechwood Home, a long-term care facility hugging the border of Hyde Park and O'Bryonville.

        She joined its board in 1988 and served as an executive committee from 1990 to 1998 then as president from 1996 to 1998.

        Still, nothing is more important to her than the interpersonal work she does with its seriously and terminally ill residents, so she looks forward to Fridays, when she helps prepare them and the facility for on-site celebration of Mass.

        “I'm not a real tremendous leader in the community,” she says modestly. “I do a lot of hands-on work.”

        Her hands-on work, accompanied by a significant dose of leadership, we might add, benefits a lot of worthwhile causes. Just count her other Tristate board memberships since 1975: Birthright, Boys and Girls Clubs of Cincinnati; Caracole; Great American Artists; Milford Spiritual Center; National Conference of Community and Justice (NCCJ); National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society of Southwest Ohio; Pregnancy Center East; Springer School; and Talbert House.

        Her efforts come naturally. Her mother, Helen DeCourcy Williams, was an Enquirer Woman of the Year in 1987. Her father, William J. Williams, businessman and former co-owner of the Cincinnati Reds, served the Boys and Girls Clubs for more than 30 years.

        “They both were really outstanding volunteers and board people,” Mrs. Clauder said of her parents. “They did a lot for the boards they were on, and they really cared about them.”

        As does Mary Frances, nicknamed Sug (as in Sugar).

        “She has served numerous and diverse nonprofit organizations with a love and dedication that makes their service a healing for societal wounds,” wrote lawyer Rose Ann Fleming, who served with her on the board at Milford Spiritual Center.

        “In her charming, compassionate and down-to-earth manner, Sug warms and softens the atmosphere of every meeting in which she participates,” wrote Robert C. Harrod, executive director at the NCCJ. “She is a mediating influence, always moving (others) with gentleness and grace, toward a positive course of action.”

        She had been encouraged herself.

        Growing up in Hyde Park, “We were blessed with so many gifts,” she said. Our parents always told us, "You should give back to the community and society.' ”

        Later in life, she credits Junior League for their influence. “The training and the way they stress the responsibility of volunteer work is wonderful.”

        In many instances of her volunteerism, Mrs. Clauder envisioned a debt greater than a privileged childhood. There have been personal connections to some of the nonprofits she serves.

        “My son went to Springer,” a Hyde Park school that specializes in learning disabilities, she says. “My sister has MS.” (More than half the residents at Beechwood have MS.)

        Relative to her work with pregnancy-counseling organizations, she said, “We adopted two of our children.”

        Another relative had Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, so she became a founding member of Caracole, which eases living arrangements for people with AIDS. Yet another graduated from a youth program at Talbert House, which helps clients fight substance abuse, mental health and criminal justice problems.

        “I was so grateful they were there when we needed them,” she said, referring to all the agencies. “"It just makes you want to do what you can do.”

        And what still needs to be done in Cincinnati?

        Many things, she says. Among them:

        “Our downtown concerns me. I hope we can see more people going downtown, wanting to go downtown. I'm hoping maybe the (Underground Railroad) Freedom Center can help do that.”

        quote “I'm not a real tremendous leader in the community. I do a lot of hands-on work.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer's Women of the Year
Danya Karram
Francie Schott Hiltz
J.J. Johnson-JioDucci
Jane Lampke Bracken
Mary Frances Williams Clauder
Mauri J. Willis
Merri Gaither Smith
Sherrie Lou Noel
Sisters Mary Ann Fuerst and Alice Marie Soete
The Rev. Dr. Cinda Gorman
Past Enquirer Women of the Year