Clara Platt Goodman

The other pharmacist

The Goodman pharmacy is remembered as George’s — the mayor’s drugstore, the civic forum. But Clara stood behind the same counter. She had the same license. She had completed the same two-year pharmacy program in Los Angeles, in an era when most women could not yet vote. When people called Goodman’s Pharmacy a family business, the emphasis belonged on family. ^{[S30] [S12]}

A Romney granddaughter

Clara was born in 1898 in Arizona’s Gila Valley, the daughter of Dr. William Erastus Platt and Isabell Hill Romney. Through her mother, she was the granddaughter of Miles Park Romney (1843–1904), one of the most prominent LDS colonizers of the Southwest — a man who settled St. George, St. Johns, and eventually fled to Mexico under anti-polygamy prosecution. ^[S25]

Her first cousin was George W. Romney, the Governor of Michigan and 1968 presidential candidate. Senator Mitt Romney is her first cousin once removed. The connection is more than a footnote: it links Clara’s branch of the family to one of the most recognizable political dynasties in American public life. ^{[S33] [S37]}

The healer’s daughter

Clara’s father was known locally as the “Healer of the West.” In an era before telephones, his patients would hang white tea towels on their gates when someone was sick. Dr. Platt would spot these flags from his horse and buggy, stopping to treat everything from farm accidents to infectious disease. ^{[S31] [S33]}

He owned pharmacies in Pima, Thatcher, and Safford. Clara grew up watching her father compound medicines. The Goodman pharmacy would not have existed without this apprenticeship. ^[S12]

Professional partnership

She married George Nicholas Goodman on June 30, 1916, when she was eighteen. George had worked as an apprentice in her father’s pharmacies. In a remarkable decision for the era, both moved to Los Angeles for pharmacy school. Both completed the two-year program. Both returned to Arizona as licensed pharmacists. ^{[S12] [S30]}

Apache Drug

In 1924, the couple opened Apache Drug on Main Street in downtown Mesa. The soda fountain became a community gathering place. Their children worked as “soda jerks,” and customers ordered signature drinks like “Cokes with cream.” ^{[S12] [S32]}

First Lady of Mesa

George served as Mayor for five terms across three decades. During the Depression, wartime rationing, and the postwar boom, Clara was the steady presence behind the public figure. ^[S12]

She was also, in a very practical sense, the reason George could serve at all. As a trained pharmacist, Clara was uniquely qualified to manage his insulin-dependent diabetes — a complex, life-threatening condition in the 1930s and 40s that required careful dosing and constant monitoring. ^[S12]

The children

That two sons entered medicine — optometry and surgery — was no coincidence. Clara transmitted the “Healer of the West” archetype from her father’s generation to the next.

Twenty-five years after George

George died unexpectedly on November 3, 1959. Clara survived him by nearly twenty-five years. In that time she witnessed a second devastating loss: her son Clifford Sr. died at forty, leaving a widow and eight children. ^{[S12] [S35]}

She died on February 8, 1984, in Mesa at age eighty-five. She was buried in the City of Mesa Cemetery alongside George. ^{[S30] [S38]}