Clara Brown

Mrs. Clara Lapinska Brown, 99, of Boonsboro, Maryland, formerly of Chevy Chase, passed away on Sunday, July 5, 2015, at Somerford House, Frederick, Maryland.

Born April 6, 1916, in the Bronx, New York, she was the daughter of the late Julian A. Lapinski and Maria Buciak; beloved mother of Andrea Dagmar Brown of Chevy Chase, Maryland and Steven Ravett Brown of Manhattan, New York; son-in-law Robert K. Swenson of Chevy Chase; daughter-in-law Shanna Swan of Manhattan; and married to the late Herbert R. Brown of Brooklyn, New York.

Clara was gifted with many talents. She was a political activist, a musician, an antiques dealer, an oil painter, a theater major at NYU, and a teacher in the notorious Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan. She was a political activist in both Bethesda-Chevy Chase, where she was elected President of the Chevy Chase Community Association, and was instrumental in preserving the residential corridor from Bradley and Wisconsin Avenues to Western Avenue by zoning a firehouse. And she was active in Washington and Frederick Counties where she worked tirelessly to protect family homesteads from government seizure along the Appalachian Trail.

Funeral services are by Stauffer Funeral Home, Frederick, and she will be placed in the Monocacy Mausoleum at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Frederick, MD.

In lieu of flowers, please make any contributions in her name to the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts at (301) 739-5727.