Harriet De Claire

Harriet De Claire
De Claire (c. 1900)
Born	Harriet Elizabeth Billings (1836-12-27)December 27, 1836 Rochester, New York, United States
Died	May 27, 1927(1927-05-27) (aged 90) St. Johns, Michigan, United States
Burial place	Maple Grove Cemetery, Comstock, Michigan, United States 42°15′47″N 85°31′48″W / 42.26310°N 85.53000°W / 42.26310; -85.53000
Other names	Harriet de Cleyre
Occupation	Seamstress
Spouse	Hector De Claire ​ ​ (m. 1861; sep. 1873)​
Children	Marion Adelaide Voltairine
Parents	Pliny Billings (father) Alice Billings (mother)

Harriet Elizabeth De Claire (née Billings; 1836–1927) was an American seamstress and writer. Born into a Puritan New Englander family associated with the abolitionist movement, she moved to Michigan and married Hector De Claire, with whom she had three daughters. After the death of their oldest daughter, Marion, they moved to St. Johns, where the family lived in extreme poverty. During their childhood, her daughters Adelaide and Voltairine developed a love of reading, which Harriet nurtured with the poetry of Lord Byron. But their financial situation also made Harriet emotionally distant from her children, which Adelaide would come to forgive, but Voltairine would not. After her children grew up, she kept in constant touch with Voltairine, even as her child's politics grew more radical and distant from Harriet's social conservatism. Her correspondence with Voltairine, which lasted up until her death, became a key primary source on her life and was collected in Harvard University's Ishgill Collection and the University of Michigan's Labadie Collection. Harriet De Claire spent the rest of her life in St. Johns, where she died in 1927.