Great Grandma Was A Fibber

 “One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”

― Oscar Wilde

By that measure of character, it appears that Oscar Wilde would have implicitly trusted my great grandmother Sarah Ann (Vickers) Clarke (1862-1931).  A lifelong fibber about her age, her penchant for doing so may also have had something to do with perhaps trying to appear younger in successive marriages to progressively younger men.

Born in Luton, England, my father’s maternal grandmother’s officially registered date of birth was March 15, 1862.  Her nascent fibbing skills are seen at the time of her first marriage to 27 year old John Gutteridge on March 3, 1883.  Listing her age as 21 when she was in fact 20, a small quibble perhaps since she was only twelve days shy of her 21^st birthday, Sarah would never again be so close to being truthful when marrying.    

Pregnant at the time of this marriage, Sarah Ann would first lose her new husband, six years her senior, after only two months of marriage.  Later in August of that same year, she would also lose the child of that marriage two days after his birth.  Widowed while still 21, Sarah Ann, from that point on apparently decided to set her sights on younger men.

Her next choice two years later was eighteen year old Albert Clarke born February 25, 1867 and a full five years her junior.  When the two were married on August 31, 1885, Sarah claimed to be a 22 year old spinster when she was in fact a 23-year-old widow.  Albert was not above joining in the charade himself.  He claimed to be 21 years of age when actually 18.  Unfortunately, marrying a man younger by five years proved to be no antidote to widowhood.  After five children and the family’s immigration to Canada, in 1907 Albert would suddenly die from a heart condition at the young age of 43. 

After a second widowhood of two years, Sarah was again ready to give marriage a try.  Having been predeceased now by both an older and younger husband, this time she dug deep for her new “boy toy”.  William Williams was only 32 years of age in 1909 when he married a now 47 year old Sarah.  Rather outrageously, Williams would only have been but five years of age at the time of Sarah’s first marriage.  He was but nine years older than Sarah’s eldest child. 

Given her five adult children and a physically obvious age disparity, on this occasion Sarah’s fibbing options were limited.  She did manage, however, this time round to shave four years off her age, claiming now to be 43, eleven years her husband’s senior rather than the fifteen years she in fact was.  Sarah for some reason had been promoting the 1866 year of birth myth as early as 1906, the year the family sailed to Canada, when she claimed to be age forty according to the ship’s manifest. 

After over twenty years of a less than happy marriage to her unfaithful third husband, Sarah died January 14, 1931, at last having a husband who outlived her.  At the time of Sarah’s death, her youngest child, Beatrice (Clarke) Arntfield, believing the fib and clearly unaware of her mother’s true birth date, gave her mother’s death in her obituary as 64 rather than the 68 it was.  Apart from a lifetime of misstating her age, Sarah had also never revealed to any family members the details of her first ill-fated marriage and child.  There are just some things that remain a woman’s prerogative to conceal.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield