Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas learned the tragedy of her maternal great-grandmother’s life when she appeared on the BBC‘s genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are.
What she uncovered was completely at odds with what she had been told growing up and more shocking than she could have imagined.
At the beginning of the show, she admitted she was keen to learn if the story about her great-grandmother, Clara, abandoning her family, including Shirley’s grandmother Daisy, to go to live in the USA was true.
“I believe my great-grandmother was a bit of a party girl, and she left my grandma when she was very young, and she flew the coop and went to the United States,” she said.
This version of Clara’s life, in which her husband George, Shirley’s great grandfather, died of a broken heart after she left, turns out to be completely at odds with the facts.
It transpired George moved out of the family home before Clara and died of cancer rather than a broken heart. Clara remarried and went to America with her new husband in 1919.
Sadly, Clara’s move to America didn’t offer a bright new beginning. A census record from 1920 showed she and her new husband Arthur were living in a lodging house Boston. He was a porter in a hotel and she was a sales assistant in a department store.
Shirley admitted the fact her great gandmother seemed to be makng the most of the opportunities her new life afforded her made her smile. Sadly further investigation showed her American dream turned very sour.
A historian had unearthed a divorce petition from Clara, which said Arthur was abusive and adulterous. It also showed the couple had adopted a young girl named Dorothy.
Shirley was visibly emotional when she learnt of this. “I was really hoping for a happier ending for her. She loses her husband because of cancer. She has to leave her three children behind, and then she ends up in this abusive relationship,” she reflected.
Clara’s life didn’t improve post-divorce. Shirley was then shown documents that showed she spent 17 years in a psychiatric hospital.
She died at the age of 66 on August, 25 1947, of dementia and syphilis. As Shirley processed this bombshell the historian told her it was likely she had caught syphilis from Arthur. “One of the things about Syphilis is, if you’re infected and you’re untreated for some time, it can basically appear as dementia. You really lose your mind as much as you lose your body,” she explained to a tearful Shirley.
“She suffered at Arthur’s hands, suffered leaving her children, and what’s very sad is that her family has no idea. She never saw them after she went to America. And I don’t think my grandmother, Daisy would have known any of this,” Shirley said.
“I’ll carry this with me now for a long, long time. And Clara, my great grandmother, holds a very, very, very special place in my heart, and I’m sure when I share this with the rest of the family, everybody will look upon Clara in a much, much different light.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk ’
