Clara Gertrude Lee was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the 6th June 1885, the daughter of William Henry and Elizabeth Ann Lee (née Boynton) of 11, Langford Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her father was a carpenter, who had emigrated from Ireland.
Clara was a dressmaker, and on the 21st December 1910, she married Sidney Groves in Toronto. Sidney had emigrated from England in 1907 and was working as a carpenter in Toronto. The couple had one son named Frederick William - known as “Bunny”.-.who was born on the 30th June 1913. The family lived at 142. Lee Avenue, Toronto.
In the spring of 1915, the family decided to travel to England to visit Sidney’s family in Portsmouth and introduce Bunny to them.
Consequently, they booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania, which was scheduled to leave New York for Liverpool at 10.00 a.m. on 1st May 1915 and having left Toronto some time in April, they arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York in time for the sailing. They then had to wait until just after mid-day before the vessel actually sailed as she had to load cargo and take on board passengers and crew transferred from the recently requisitioned Anchor Lines vessel
Cameronia.
Then, six days out of New York, whilst the Lusitania was steaming past The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger. At that stage of her voyage, she was only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port. It was a fateful event for the Grove family as all three of them died as a result.
Although no sign of her husband and son, alive or dead, was ever encountered again, Clara Groves’ body was recovered from the sea afterwards and after it had been landed at Queenstown, it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries set up there, given the reference number 166 and described as: -
Women about 27, fair hair, blue eyes, regular nose, fresh complexion, medium make, about 5‘ 3“, black boots laced, white cotton blouse, blue skirt.
It was then identified by her sister from a photograph taken of the corpse. As it was necessary to bury all the recovered bodies as soon as was practicable, for reasons of hygiene, they were all photographed in the temporary mortuaries in Queenstown before being buried. Anxious relatives of those missing were then invited to identify their loved ones through these photographs.
Then, on 14th May 1915, it was buried in The Old Church Cemetery just north of the town, in Mass Grave B, 4th Row, Lower Tier, where it lies to this day. Clara Groves was aged 29 years at the time of her death.
On 8th July 1915, property recovered from her body, was put on board the liner S.S.
Orduña, bound for New York and given to shipping agents Robert Reford and Company, who eventually handed it over to her father, Mr. William Lees, at the Langford Avenue address.
This property consisted of a wedding ring and a signet ring inscribed with the initials
C.L. and CHRISS 1906. It is likely that the C.L. stands for Clara Lees and the word
CHRISS was actually Christ.
Ontario Canada Births 1858 – 1913, 1891 Census of Canada, 1901 Census of Canada, 1911 Census of Canada, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/7, D92/2/31, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.