returning to San Francisco, she studied piano with Mrs. Oscar Cushing, and later with Oscar Weil. She was present on the day of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake when she turned back from going to her piano lessons by the devastation that she found in the city.

Clement went to Europe in 1909 to take piano lessons with Josef Lhévinne and Harold Bauer. In autumn 1917, Clement with friend and lover, Lillian