Ann Clare Brokaw

Who was Ann Clare Brokaw?

Ann Clare Brokaw was the only child of Clare Boothe Brokaw and George Tuttle Brokaw.

Her parents were married in August 1923 and divorced on May 20, 1929. Her father agreed to financial support for Clare and her mother, but in 1932 sued to have greater custody of Ann. Six months after her father's death in May 1935, her mother married Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life magazines. Her stepfather insisted that Ann and the press refer to Luce as her father.

In June 1941, Brokaw graduated cum laude from the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia. She was expected to attend an East Coast women's college such as Smith College or Bryn Mawr College, but instead elected to attend Stanford University as a way to see the western United States.

Brokaw enrolled in Stanford in fall 1941 and joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. She majored in political science and philosophy, and was scheduled to graduate summa cum laude in the spring of 1944.

However, on January 11, 1944, Brokaw was a passenger in a car that was struck by another car near the Stanford campus. The 19-year-old senior was ejected from the car and died of fatal head injuries.