Clara Chase Leach graduated from Wellesley College and from Temple Medical School in Philadelphia. She was appointed by the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in March 1916 for service in Kityang, south China. She arrived in China on Christmas Day to begin her work at the Bixby Memorial General Hospital.

In 1941 following a furlough, she tried to return to Kityang but was detained in Swatow by the military. While there, she worked in the Scott-Thresher Memorial Hospital. She returned home and again, in 1942, tried to reach Kityang, this time traveling by way of South America, South Africa and India. In 1945, she was forced to evacuate to Yunnan where she worked in the hospital of the China Inland Mission. Later she served at the Baptist Mission in Chengtu, Szechwan, before returning to Kityang, South China in 1946.

In 1950 the door closed on China, and Dr. Leach went to South India for medical work at the American Baptist Mission Hospital in Nellore where she served until her retirement in 1955. Following her retirement from active missionary service, Leach settled in Shoreham, Vermont, where she carried on a medical practice from 1955 to 1963.