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00:00Dolly, come on, come on, come on!
00:04Media personality Sharon Osbourne divides her time between her homes in Los Angeles,
00:10where she lives with her husband, rock star Ozzy Osbourne,
00:16and England, the country she was born in.
00:22This is me and my mother at our home in Brixton.
00:28I lived in Brixton for the first, I think, 10 or 11 years of my life.
00:34My mother was a dancer.
00:37My father was an agent in the music business, very ambitious.
00:41He became a manager and then he opened a record label.
00:46He was like a workaholic.
00:49I had a very interesting childhood.
00:53My brother and I just had a lot of freedom.
00:56I used to run wild.
00:59We didn't have that sort of structure where, you know,
01:02mummy takes you to school and mummy's there waiting for you
01:05and you come home and you have something nice to eat
01:07and then you do your homework and a nice little bath and bed.
01:11It wasn't that way.
01:13After she left school, Sharon joined her father in the music business.
01:18I think I'm hard working and I got that work ethic from my parents, definitely.
01:25You know, if you ever wanted anything, you had to work for it.
01:29Sharon knows about her father's roots in Manchester's Jewish community,
01:34but very little about her mother's side of the family.
01:37My whole life I just thought they're all Irish, but I don't know if that's really true.
01:44The little bits I do know.
01:47My grandmother was called Doris and she was known as Dolly.
01:51She was a choreographer dancer and worked a lot in vaudeville.
01:57As a child, Dolly frightened me.
02:01She had white, white hair and she would put a lot of red lipstick around her mouth
02:06and it would always be on her false teeth.
02:10I always thought she looked like a witch.
02:13I had no idea of my grandfather's name.
02:17Just don't know it.
02:19There weren't any pictures and she would never speak of him.
02:24It's very exciting to kind of find out how it all started.
02:29What am I connected to? You know, what are my roots?
02:32You know, probably I came from a load of old witches that were burnt at the stake or something.
02:37That would be fabulous. I just don't know.
02:50I don't know.
02:51I just want to make a difference.
02:52It's so much.
02:57I just want to make it so it's more of a kind of natural.
02:58I love you.
03:00You know, I'm a friend and I, you know,
03:03You know, I'm a good friend.
03:14I'm waiting for my niece Gina to arrive I think she'll be able to help fill in all the gaps
03:24that
03:24we have she knows a lot more than I do Sharon's niece Gina has always taken an interest in the
03:42family history and she's brought along some memorabilia do you know who that is mm-hmm
03:52that's your mother hope that's home yes oh my lord Wow what year would disappear I don't know
04:03what oh it says on the back there you go Southampton 1935 oh my lord and look at the name
04:11of the
04:11song or the act come over here it's quite a sultry picture as well isn't it hmm I've definitely got
04:20her legs thanks a lot hope and this one yeah so this is Dolly your grandmother your mother's mother
04:34and who is that I think that is Dolly's husband Arthur James Shaw your grandfather Wow there he is it
04:45was
04:45always a mystery to me I mean I didn't know anything I mean I didn't even think that my grandmother
04:52was
04:52married or my mum had like a stable dad in her life so this is like I think that he
04:59can't have been on
05:01the scene but what happened to him I don't know so that's my granddad eh yeah what did you get
05:09up to mister
05:10yes I really and I think this lady is Ira and I think that might be Dolly's sister because she
05:17had a sister
05:18called Ira her sister her sister I think I never knew that Dolly even had a sister no she would
05:25have been
05:25my great aunt yes I wonder what happened to her no idea yeah I don't know and they were called
05:35hewson hewson hewson trio I never heard the name hewson it's not catchy is it and if you look here
05:45this is
05:46the stage newspaper from March 1912 and it lists the renowned hewson trio and an act that is always
05:56working oh well and they seem to repeat the lines a lot it's quite funny hewson's trio the greatest
06:04novelty vocal and dance acts in vaudeville mmm I wonder what the novelty was today yes it looks like it's
06:15a bit
06:16of a comedy turn yeah yeah it does like he's being very naughty because they're shaking their finger
06:21yes yes they're telling him off aren't they yeah they were going to be falling in Darwin Salford and
06:27Durham must have been a hard life I think fun but no sense of home no sense of home no
06:37sense of family no
06:38no because you're always on the move listen you saw with my mum and dad coming going yeah there's no
06:46sense of no of security and then this is their marriage certificate Arthur James Shaw so your
06:56grandfather and Doris Armgill Dolly your grandmother they're both listed as musical artists what dates they
07:05married in 1915 and the first world war had started the year before so that could explain why he wasn't
07:16on
07:16the scene he might have been killed in the wall yeah he could have been he could have been did
07:23you go
07:23going to the wall what happened to you mister right yeah so I never even knew that my grandmother had
07:37a
07:38sister and this is the first time I've ever seen a picture of my grandfather Arthur James Shaw they look
07:47like a very sassy trio to me it's nice because it goes to prove that my suspicions are all wrong
07:55and
07:56you know I go right to the edge it's like right she was never married she you know and here
08:02she is with
08:03her husband my grandfather but um I'd still like to know what actually happened to him and why nobody ever
08:10spoke of him Sharon's grandmother Dolly performed in a musical act with her sister Ira Sharon's great
08:19aunt as well as with the man she married in 1915 Sharon's grandfather Arthur James Shaw who went by the
08:27name of James to see if James was called up as a soldier Sharon is checking the British Army service
08:36records
08:40here we go he was in the Royal Artillery ah what is this so this is his enlistment papers Mr
08:53James Shaw and
08:54his number was one one two two three five are you a British subject yes what is your age 27
09:02and two months
09:03what is your trade of calling music hall artist are you married yes rank driver
09:12he had very nice handwriting oh my lord he was very short height five foot five and a half so
09:24he'd signed up
09:26before he got so we signed up the year he got married or before he got married no after because
09:36they got married in July 1915 and he signed up in October so really they weren't to get along for
09:45he he
09:46absolutely went to war particulars as to children so he had hope my mother and it gives the date of
09:55birth 12th of April 1916 the military history sheet so one month before my mother was born he was sent
10:07across to the Mediterranean ended up in Egypt he returned home in 1919 so he was gone three years
10:23that's a long time but he survived it he came home it must have been tough for my grandmother
10:31I mean he's off it's a god-forsaken place in the middle of a war must have been very hard
10:39just to get
10:42by every week Sharon wants to know how her grandmother Dolly coped left to look after her newborn baby Sharon's
10:56mother hope I'm so interested to join up all the dots I wonder what happened to grandma I just
11:06instinctively feel that she must have kept working that was the only way she could have survived
11:20by the time of the first world war music hall had become known as variety theater a program of acts
11:28featuring singers acrobats jugglers and dancers it was the most popular form of entertainment at the time
11:36and elegant new theaters sprung up across Britain Sharon has come to one of the handful of venues still
11:44preserved from that period in Tunbridge Wells it's been converted into a pub she's meeting historian Dr Caroline
11:55Radcliffe hi Caroline how are you lovely to meet you what a wonderful place we're in well we're
12:05standing on the stage of the Tunbridge Wells opera house and it's not the sort of opera house you
12:12think of as performing grand opera it was built more as a variety theater at the beginning of of the
12:19last century and just over a hundred years ago at Christmas in 1917 your grandmother and her sister
12:29were performing on this stage wow unbelievable and I'll tell you a bit more about it if we go up
12:37to the dress circle
12:38come on let's go so when your grandfather went off to the Great War Dolly and Ira her sister were
12:50left behind so the Hewson Trio couldn't function anymore so they went and joined the Phil Ascot four it was
12:59Phil who ran the group mm-hmm and then the three women so Ira Doris
13:05Dolly and one of the woman so we've managed to find a program from Christmas Eve 1917
13:16the Phil Ascot four the famous novelty dancers introducing the English pony trot it's the pony trot it was a
13:28novelty
13:28dance and it was really modern at the time and I think this is an amazing photo of your grandmother
13:38and her sister there's Dolly with the girls wow it's wild it is now amazingly we've managed to find a
13:49little bit of film that it doesn't show your grandmother unfortunately but it shows a troupe of dancers doing the
13:55pony trot
13:56so you get an idea of the kind of liveliness and energy that went into it
14:08oh yes yes yes
14:12I'm loving it I absolutely love it
14:18wow
14:23they must have been knackered after this
14:30that's like wild for those times
14:35animal dances like the pony trot were all the rage at the start of the 20th century
14:43and there were many of them including the grizzly bear bunny hug and even the turkey trot
14:53and it wasn't just the ballroom dancing purists they offended
14:59these sorts of very modern novelty dances they they were accused of being a little bit edgy
15:05yeah
15:06little bit risque and the pope in particular condemned the turkey trot so I don't know what he would have
15:12thought about the pony trot
15:16I'm sure he wouldn't have liked it
15:19I think they must have really added to that you know escapism from worrying about the war and everything that
15:26was happening
15:27it was exciting and it was what all the young people wanted to be watching
15:32it's just amazing
15:33so they must have been doing this all through the war
15:36your grandmother had a daughter by this time
15:39hope my mother
15:40yeah
15:41so she had to look after the baby
15:43yeah
15:44they couldn't stop working
15:45do you know how old they were
15:48what the difference was between Dolly and her sister Ira
15:52yeah
15:53Ira would have been 17
15:55and Dolly was 25 or 26
15:59so Dolly was obviously the one who took charge when they were travelling
16:03and sort of chaperoned her younger sister
16:07and they were living together as well
16:09yeah
16:09they were all registered at the same address
16:11yes
16:11so they must have been so close
16:14so this is the last thing that I've got to show you
16:18and this concerns Ira
16:23death certificate
16:25oh she died
16:29on the 9th of November 1918
16:34wow
16:35she was 18
16:38oh my god
16:43tuberculosis
16:45and it said here that she was two years into it
16:51so she was clearly ill all the time she was performing
16:56theatres were a place where illnesses did get spread
17:00yeah
17:00all put together in dressing rooms and
17:03oh my lord
17:07she must have suffered so much
17:12my grandmother was present at her sister's death
17:16Acre Lane
17:18in Brixton
17:20that must have been absolutely awful to be there
17:24and see like an 18 year old die
17:29how terribly terribly sad
17:33in the back of my mind I suppose
17:35I was fearing that for her
17:38because there was never any
17:41any any mention of her ever
17:46terrible
17:48at the time Ira died
17:51tuberculosis was one of the deadliest diseases in the world
17:54highly contagious and spread through the air
17:57it had killed hundreds of millions of people
18:00just three years after Ira's death in 1921
18:04a vaccine was introduced and given to children
18:08which would help curb the spread of the disease
18:12I knew my grandmother
18:15not well because I was too young to know her well
18:18but I have a whole new respect for her as a woman
18:21and what she did for those years on the road
18:24and you know dealing with her sister's death
18:27and the birth of my mother
18:29and it's like I don't know how she did it all
18:32you know her husband was away in Egypt
18:35this woman was a hard worker
18:38a very very strong woman
18:40I don't know how she went on after she lost her sister
18:44and even though she's gone
18:46years and years ago
18:48it's still
18:53it matters to me
18:56the way I thought of her
18:58and
18:59my impressions of her from a child to now
19:03were totally wrong
19:07after the First World War
19:09Dolly was reunited with her husband
19:11Sharon's grandfather James Shaw
19:15James returned home to live with his wife and their daughter Hope
19:18Sharon's mother
19:19at 29 Acre Lane in Brixton, South London
19:25Sharon's trying to find the house she remembers seeing as a child
19:30not where Tesco's is
19:32oh you're joking
19:34that is so depressing
19:38oh what a shame
19:44Sharon's grandmother's house at Acre Lane
19:47and the buildings next door were demolished in the 1970s
19:52we used to come up and down here all the time
19:55and whenever we were on the bus
19:57because we went everywhere by bus
19:59my mum would always point out the house
20:01you know
20:02that was a big house like that
20:08nothing stays the same though does it
20:15While they were in Acre Lane
20:18Dolly and James had a son
20:20Sharon's uncle
20:20who was born in 1920
20:29Sharon is meeting social historian Dr Kate Bradley
20:33to find out about her family's life in Brixton
20:38Sharon I have got some documents to show you
20:41I'd like to start with a photograph
20:44wow
20:47my grandmother
20:49my mother
20:49and my uncle
20:52it's actually one of the nicest pictures I've seen of my grandmother
20:57where she looks quite soft
20:59and I love the way that my mother is holding on to her
21:04her mother
21:07it's a very warm photograph
21:09it is
21:10my mum looks very sweet in there too
21:13yeah
21:15wow
21:17so this is an extract from one of the South London newspapers
21:21what year was this?
21:23this is 1929
21:25a Brixton incident
21:27mother and daughter charged
21:29child takes the blame
21:32oh my lord
21:35Mabel Shaw 35
21:38a variety artist
21:40of Acre Lane
21:41Brixton
21:42but who is this?
21:44this is your grandmother
21:45Mabel?
21:47yes
21:47she seems to be calling herself Mabel here
21:50whether it was a name she came up with when she'd been arrested
21:54or whether she was using a slightly different name at that time
21:58probably because she was arrested
22:01yeah
22:02Doris
22:03Dolly
22:05Mabel
22:06however
22:06your mother's name
22:09Hope
22:09yes
22:10is correct
22:11Mabel Shaw 35
22:13and Hope Shaw 12
22:15were charged before Mr Harold McKenna
22:19at Lambas Police Court
22:21being concerned together in stealing two pairs of stockings and other articles valued at eight shillings and four pence
22:34they pleaded guilty
22:37unbelievable
22:39wow
22:40must have been pretty desperate to do that
22:42when they were stopped the girl exclaimed
22:46I will take all the blame if you will let mummy go
22:52oh my god
22:54that is just heartbreaking
22:57a detective officer said
23:00Mrs Shaw was separated from her husband and had an aged mother to support
23:06she was a variety artist but had been out of employment on and off for five or six months
23:15talking here about being out of work
23:17and separated
23:19yeah
23:20yeah
23:22so to have two kids
23:24a husband gone
23:25it must have been
23:26really hard
23:28yeah
23:33at the time that Sharon's grandmother and mother were caught stealing in 1929
23:39they were no longer living with James Shaw
23:41Sharon's grandfather
23:44oh
23:46it's like I feel a pain in my heart
23:48you know looking at my mum's little face in this photo
23:51she's just such a sweet innocent little thing holding on to her mum really tight
23:57and she must have had one hell of a childhood with no father
24:02her mother was working so growing up and not having the comfort of your parents
24:08my heart really does break for her and it gives me a sense of why she was the way she
24:15was
24:19after they were arrested Dolly and Hope were taken to the police court in Lambeth
24:26today the court has become a Buddhist and meditation centre
24:30but much of the original building has been preserved
24:43oh my lord they've still got the original doors too
24:46yeah
24:48wow
24:50there are a couple of things I'd like to show you if we go inside this cell here
24:53okay
24:57the first thing I'd like to show you is the jailers index
25:00this is for December 1929
25:03this kind of is the list of the people who come through the cells on their way to kind of
25:07going to court
25:08and down here we find Mabel or Dolly
25:13and Hope
25:15Mabel's 35
25:16hope is 13
25:18and they were arrested on the 12th of December
25:22and it was for stealing stockings etc
25:27I wonder if they were stealing for Christmas gifts I don't know
25:31quite possibly
25:32yeah
25:32would they have been brought in here
25:34yes
25:36were they kept overnight do you know
25:38I don't know for sure I think it's quite likely because we do know that they saw the magistrate
25:44on a Monday
25:45and we know they were arrested on a Saturday
25:47and the fact that they're on this suggests that they were here from Saturday night through to Monday morning
25:53you'd just be traumatised wouldn't you
25:56stuck in here as a little kid
25:58yeah
26:00and what is this?
26:02this is the 1939 register
26:06this is going forward about 10 years
26:08which is similar to a census of everybody in the country shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War
26:14and it was used to gather information on the population for things like generating ID cards and Russian books
26:21and we can find Doris here
26:24she's here
26:25oh she was back to Doris now
26:26back to Doris
26:27here she is
26:29and if we read along
26:31she's a petrol can filler
26:33that was her job?
26:35yes
26:35during the war?
26:36yeah
26:36okay
26:36okay
26:36and a designated heavy worker
26:39what does heavy worker mean?
26:41it meant that she was doing heavy industrial work
26:44okay
26:44and she would have got more rations as well
26:47really?
26:48mm-hmm for doing the manual work
26:49manual work
26:50yeah
26:51so we find out 10 years later my grandmother is working in the war effort filling petrol cans
26:59hmm
27:00and it says
27:03W
27:03yeah
27:04so
27:06she's given her marital status here as a W which would mean widow
27:10widow
27:11yes
27:11it is possible that she was indeed widowed
27:15it's also possible that she was trying to keep her appearances
27:19easier to say that you're a widow
27:21than to say you're separated or divorced
27:24right
27:24particularly at this time
27:25yeah
27:26this is where your grandfather falls off the record
27:29mm-hmm
27:29um
27:30we've not been able to find a death certificate
27:32um
27:33or find him on the 1939 register
27:35so
27:36it's quite possible he was using a different name
27:39the thing is about my grandfather
27:42don't know where he went
27:45or where he was from initially
27:48I don't know anything about his background at all
27:51and I put it in the ad James ad family members
27:58yeah
28:01Sharon is keen to know more about her grandfather's past
28:04so she's searching the census online
28:10this is a census um
28:12from 1891
28:14and I'm trying to trace Arthur James Shaw
28:20who was my grandfather
28:22I'm trying to trace his family
28:24to see where he actually came from
28:26because this man is like a ghost
28:31okay
28:32it says
28:33Arthur Shaw here
28:35head
28:36head of family
28:37Annie his wife
28:39so
28:40my
28:41great-grandmother and father
28:43and then there's
28:45three sons
28:46Thomas
28:47John
28:48and
28:49Arthur James
28:50my
28:51grandfather
28:52okay
28:53so he was son
28:55of
28:55Arthur
28:57and where is he from?
29:00hold on
29:01is that
29:03Lancashire
29:04and his mum
29:06Annie
29:06came from
29:08this is really
29:10really
29:10hard to make out
29:11to me
29:12it looks like
29:14America
29:15fallen river
29:17wow
29:20America
29:21that's unbelievable
29:22my
29:23great-grandmother
29:24his mum
29:25was American
29:27my god
29:29I'm really
29:31really shocked
29:31about this
29:32I would never
29:34ever
29:34have thought
29:35that
29:36I wonder
29:37what she was
29:38doing
29:40in England
29:42how on earth
29:43did they meet
29:44how did
29:45Annie
29:46who's here
29:47was 22
29:48meet
29:49Arthur Shaw
29:50to be my great-grandparent
29:54and where is
29:55fallen river
29:57I've never heard of it
30:04to find out more about her American ancestry
30:07Sharon's traveled to the United States
30:11she's come to Newport New England
30:13to meet up with genealogist Dr Stephanie Khoury
30:17who's been researching the life of Sharon's great-grandmother Annie
30:23hi Stephanie
30:24hello
30:25hello hello
30:26how are you
30:26welcome to Newport
30:28oh
30:28it's my pleasure to be here
30:31so I'm going to tell you what I know about my great-grandmother
30:35okay
30:36her name was Annie
30:37and she comes from a place called Fallen Rivers
30:41actually
30:42it's Fall River
30:44it must have been a
30:45the registrar wrote down the wrong information
30:48okay
30:48it's actually called Fall River
30:50Fall River
30:50Massachusetts
30:51and she moved from here to England
30:56and she married an Englishman
31:00and she had three sons
31:01and then one of her sons was my grandfather
31:05so you have deep roots I think in Fall River
31:08so this is your great-grandmother Annie
31:11yes
31:12and here is her birth certificate
31:14in Fall River, Massachusetts
31:17she was born on August 17, 1868
31:22and her name was Hannah
31:24yes
31:25so Annie nickname
31:26Hannah O'Donnell
31:28her father's name was Thomas O'Donnell
31:31and her daddy was Irish
31:35her mother's name was Catherine
31:39and her mother's birthplace was England
31:42yes
31:43a father who was Irish
31:45and a mother who was English
31:46and they immigrated to Fall River, Massachusetts
31:51so is this surprising to you?
31:53um
31:53it's all surprising to me
31:55I never thought that I was connected to anyone who actually was American
32:01so there you go
32:02yeah
32:02you're American too
32:03wow
32:06Sharon has learnt that Annie's father
32:08Sharon's great-great-grandfather Thomas
32:11came to America from Ireland
32:13while her mother Catherine came from England
32:16in the middle of the 19th century
32:18crop failures and famines struck Europe
32:21causing death and suffering across many countries
32:25it was particularly bad in Ireland
32:28where around a million people died
32:31after a failure of the potato crop
32:33and this may have been why Thomas O'Donnell
32:36who had grown up during this period
32:38decided to go to America
32:41Thomas was part of a massive European migration
32:44to the United States
32:47but Sharon wants to know why Thomas and her great-great-grandmother Catherine
32:51chose to live in Fall River
32:54there's a travel guide that's called the Tainter's Guide
32:57that you could read to learn about the glorious qualities of the communities
33:03which you were travelling to
33:05including Fall River, Massachusetts
33:06so this was enticing people to come to Fall River
33:10its streets are handsomely adorned
33:14they were
33:15with shade trees
33:16adding much to the comfort and beauty of the place
33:19it says that Fall River contains many elegant residences
33:24still does
33:25and the sunset views from here
33:28are said to rival those in Italy
33:30if I read this I would come
33:34the way it was written about the sunsets and the trees
33:38and the beautiful rivers
33:39it's like oh it must have been like
33:42you know heaven
33:44right
33:45I can see people just you know closing their eyes
33:48and imagining what it would be like
33:50with anticipation
33:51yeah
33:52it says this important manufacturing city
33:56it was a major manufacturing centre
33:58because of location
34:00because of temperature
34:02and a lot of people that wanted work
34:04yes
34:05the principal manufacturers are for cotton, wool, prints, iron
34:11and the making of various kinds of machinery
34:15it was the largest cotton textile manufacturing centre
34:19in the whole United States
34:20second only to Manchester, England and the world
34:23yeah
34:23at the height of Fall River's mill industry
34:27there were 2,000 miles of cotton cloth produced today
34:31wow
34:34in the 1860s
34:36the American industrial revolution was in full swing
34:40textile mills were using modern production methods
34:43and the United States was rapidly transforming from an agricultural
34:48to a manufacturing economy
34:51Sharon's great great grandparents Thomas and Catherine
34:54were both hoping to benefit from this economic boom in Fall River
35:00now I have the marriage record of Annie's parents
35:07Thomas O'Donnell, Carla White, age 24
35:11his first marriage
35:14the bride, Catherine Dowd, White, 22
35:18her first marriage, birthplace England
35:21and they were married by James Murphy
35:24Catholic priest
35:25yes
35:25in December 1867
35:29and the parish is St. Mary's parish
35:31which is located in Corky Row
35:34which is a neighbourhood where predominantly Irish people live
35:38yeah
35:38and that's where the church is
35:39it's still there?
35:41yes
35:41oh yes
35:42that's great
35:42I would love to see where they were married
35:51Sharon is on her way out of affluent Newport
35:54heading for Fall River
35:56just 20 miles away
35:59it is nice to know my heritage
36:02because I had no idea before nothing
36:04and it's nice to come too
36:07from people that fight for a better way of life
36:12and that are brave enough to get on a boat
36:16and go to the unknown land
36:17and I really admire that
36:20I think it's great strength of character
36:24pioneers, you know, I love that
36:27and Fall River, I'm really interested
36:31it sounds beautiful
36:32with the Italian-like sunsets
36:34and trees everywhere
36:35I'm really looking forward to going
36:42In the 19th century
36:44Fall River grew from a collection of villages
36:47to become one of the most important cities in New England
36:52Today there are still many relics of its industrial past
36:58St Mary's Cathedral
37:00where Sharon's great-great-grandparents
37:02Thomas and Catherine were married
37:05was built in the 1850s
37:07in response to the growing number of Catholics
37:09coming to work in the city
37:24Wow
37:28Incredible
37:52That's so unbelievable
37:54that I would be here
37:56walking down the same aisle
37:58as my great-great-grandparents did
38:04That's incredible
38:08Oh
38:12Four o'clock
38:16That's nice
38:25I'd love some of those candles
38:27with the crosses on Ozzy
38:29would love them
38:30Look
38:31Fabulous
38:34Gosh, they must have felt so special getting married here
38:38because it's so beautiful
38:43Sharon is looking at the records kept by St Mary's Cathedral
38:48This is the baptismal records
38:51started in 1861
38:59She's been given printed copies of the certificates
39:01to see what else she can learn about her family
39:04So this is the birth certificate of Hannah, Annie O'Donnell
39:10My great-grandmother
39:12Born 17th of August in 1868
39:17Then we have
39:21April 19, 1870, Margaret O'Donnell
39:26Oh, her sister
39:28She had a Bubba sister
39:31She had a Bubba sister
39:32Oh
39:33Alright, what do we have here?
39:35April 21, 1871
39:40Mary O'Donnell
39:42So they had another little girl
39:46October 3, 1872
39:50October 3, 1872
39:50Oh, Lord
39:52One after the other
39:54John O'Donnell
39:57There's more
40:01April 1874
40:04Elizabeth O'Donnell
40:06Elizabeth O'Donnell
40:07Oh, at least she had a two-year gap
40:09Okay
40:14April 1875
40:15Thomas O'Donnell
40:20God, six kids
40:22Can you imagine how hard that must have been?
40:27Whoa
40:28They must have been in and out of this church
40:31baptising the kids every year
40:33Another one and another one
40:35You know, I knew people had big families in those days
40:39But, um
40:41Wow
40:47To find out more about Thomas and Catherine O'Donnell's life here
40:51Sharon is visiting the Full River Historical Society
41:00It's based in a former mill owner's house
41:07She's meeting historian Dr. Maura Docherty
41:10So I have something for you here
41:17And this is the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1877
41:24Yes
41:24And this is the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1877
41:25At this point there's 45,000 people living there
41:30It was a small town that grew very fast
41:32In one year, in 1872, 6,000 people came
41:37Wow
41:37So it's growing rapidly
41:40And a bit chaotically, although we can see the mills are well laid out
41:45Yeah
41:48So many mills all around
41:51All of this here, and leading all the way up to there
41:55And around here, it's all industrial mills
41:59Yes
41:59It's unbelievable
42:00I saw yesterday a pamphlet on Fall River
42:07And it was saying how the sunsets are really equal to what you see in Italy
42:14And it's like where everything is just factories and industry and that's it
42:24Just an industrial town, basically, Fall River
42:29That's right, they're burning coal
42:31And I'm not sure how much of the sunset one would have seen
42:35Because even in the map, you look at it and you see all the steam coming out of all the
42:41factories
42:42So all of that pamphlet was just a terrible enticement to get these people here
42:50With all of this industry going on
42:53There must have been a constant cloud over here
42:57It must have been a terrible place to live
43:02You can see right here, this is one of the first mills built
43:05The Troy Mill in 1813
43:07You have some ancestors who worked in this mill
43:10In that one?
43:12This one right there
43:14So it would have been my great-great-grandmother and grandfather
43:20Yes, so this is where Catherine and Thomas worked
43:25Oh, Troy Mill, one of the oldest in the city, Fall River, Massachusetts
43:33And here I have the accounting books for the Troy Mill
43:37If you want to take a look at this page here
43:42Here, an O'Donnell
43:45They called her Kate
43:46Kate, yeah
43:47If we look here, that's how much she made for the month
43:52Seventeen dollars
43:54And four cents
43:55And if we look here
44:01Your great-great-grandfather
44:05Thomas O'Donnell
44:07Yes, and we can see here what he earned for the month
44:10$34.50
44:13Even in those days, this is low pay
44:16Yeah
44:17Fall River was known for being one of the lowest paid
44:21Wow
44:23And so what did my great-great-grandmother do?
44:27She's working in the carding room
44:29Where the raw cotton comes into the process
44:34And gets combed so that the fibers are all going in one direction
44:38In order to be able to spin it later
44:42Carding was a vital part of the production in cotton mills
44:46Men, women and children operated large rolling machines
44:50Which disentangled and cleaned the raw cotton
44:53In preparation for spinning
44:57The carding room was considered actually one of the worst
45:01To work in the mill
45:03There's more cotton fibers in the air
45:05It would have been all over the hair
45:07All over the clothes every day
45:08Then you're breathing these fibers in
45:11What an awful job
45:13And if there was fibers everywhere
45:15They must have gotten sick
45:17They must have got bad chest and coughs and everything
45:21From inhaling that all the time
45:23People also got something we call brown lung
45:28Or bisinosis is its technical term
45:31And it's just a cotton disease of just infecting your lungs over and over
45:39What a terrible place to come to when you're
45:42You've got dreams and you leave one country because it's so terribly hard there
45:48And you think you're going to go to a better place and you get here
45:52And it's just so bad
45:56Did you have many women working in the mills in those days?
46:00Yes, there were a lot of women in America who worked
46:04And in Fall River we see a lot of women and children are working
46:08It's really a family system here
46:10Wow
46:13Families made up a big part of the workforce in Fall River
46:18Some of the children working there were as young as six years old
46:23This was in contrast to the cotton mills in England
46:26Where there were child labor acts restricting working hours
46:30And raising the age of employment to nine
46:36The mill workers, were they given homes or not?
46:40Well, that's an interesting question
46:42If we see here, we have one column that is for rent
46:47The Troy mill required that its workers live in the housing owned by the Troy mill
46:53With each apartment being about 18 square meters
46:59So that's smaller than an average hotel room
47:03Sure
47:03And they had six kids at the end of the day
47:07Living like that
47:08So whole families and rows and rows of this
47:12And the first thing that one would have noticed walking into one of these tenements
47:15Would have been the stench
47:17Yeah
47:17They were filthy
47:19They took very little care to build this housing because the city was growing so rapidly
47:24And they didn't take care for the sanitation
47:28So that bred disease
47:29Yeah
47:30A lot of people who came from Ireland and from England
47:35Came here to Fall River thinking that it was the El Dorado
47:38Yeah
47:39You know, that the streets would be paved with gold
47:41And they got here and they faced longer hours
47:44They faced harsher working conditions
47:48These machines are running faster than the machines that they had operated before
47:52And yet they're getting paid less money
47:55For all of that
47:57I think I'd have taken the next boat back
48:01People were asked that in the newspapers
48:03And they said we can't leave, we have no money
48:06Mm
48:10I know that my great-great-grandmother and father had six children
48:14How did they survive all of this?
48:17No money, breathing in all this bad air and all they did was work
48:23It was a tough life
48:25Yeah
48:31My great-great-grandparents, Thomas and Catherine O'Donnell
48:36I mean, what a place to end up in
48:39What a place
48:43The brochures said that it was a beautiful place to be
48:47And they come over here, they give up their lives, they give up their families
48:50And come to another land for a better life
48:53And they get here
48:55And it's just a hellhole
48:57Horrible existence for young people that were enticed and then trapped
49:04Basically
49:06They had six children, one after the other
49:10And she was working pregnant
49:11It's just unbelievably hard, it's just unthinkable
49:18Complete nightmare
49:23Sharon knows that her great-grandmother Annie left America
49:27And ended up in England
49:29But what happened to Annie's younger siblings?
49:32Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth, Thomas and John
49:43Maura has been looking into this for Sharon
49:46I have some more records
49:48Here
49:56City of Fall River, it's a
50:00Certificate of Death
50:02So, Margaret O'Donnell died on June 19th, 1870
50:13Causes of Death
50:15Causes of Death
50:15Convulsions
50:16Oh
50:18My God
50:20Two months
50:24She didn't even last longer than that
50:35And I have this
50:37And I have this
50:45Another record of death, Mary O'Donnell, age two months
50:55Cholera
50:58Cholera
50:58Cholera infantum
50:59What does that mean?
51:01It's a term used for babies usually when they die with diarrhea
51:05Oh my Lord
51:09To lose two babies in a year
51:14To lose two babies in a year
51:15Hideous
51:17I have another document
51:22Oh Lord, another record of death
51:25Elizabeth
51:27Elizabeth A. O'Donnell
51:31Oh my God
51:33So, three years later
51:35My great-great-grandmother loses another little girl
51:40And she lost her at six days
51:43And she died of weakness
51:54Don't tell me another one
51:56Oh my Lord
52:03July 6, 1875
52:07And this was for Thomas O'Donnell
52:10Oh
52:11And he was
52:13Three months and 29 days old
52:17Again, weakness
52:19They're living in Olm's house
52:22What is that?
52:23That was a poor house
52:25A poor house
52:26Oh my God
52:27Similar to a workhouse, you know
52:29In England
52:33Here we go again
52:42And this is for John O'Donnell
52:46And...
52:47Oh Lord
52:49So she lost her
52:51Thomas on July 6th
52:54And then July 26th
52:57She lost John
52:59The same year
53:04And he died at two years old
53:07Consumption
53:09Oh my Lord
53:13Consumption was the name used for tuberculosis in the 19th century
53:17It came from the idea that the body was being consumed
53:21As the sufferer wasted away
53:24And when Sharon's great-grandmother Annie's brothers and sisters died
53:29Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States
53:45A certificate of death
53:47And it was for Catherine O'Donnell
53:49She was 35 years old
53:52And she died March 3rd, 1880
53:59Consumption
54:00Consumption
54:00My Lord
54:02What a life, huh?
54:07Lost five of her babies and worked to death
54:16Wow
54:19It's just unbelievable
54:2335 is no age, is it?
54:26Poor little thing
54:28And those little babies
54:30Can you imagine how heartbroken she must have been?
54:35Do we know what happened to her husband?
54:37Shortly after her death
54:40He and Annie went back to England and settled
54:47Wow
54:51So we now know why Annie went to England
54:56It does suggest to me that she had a better start than the others
55:01Mother wasn't ill
55:02That she had enough nutrition at the beginning
55:06And probably saw a lot of luck
55:08But that she made it
55:10Yeah, she made it
55:11And the others didn't
55:14Yeah, they were just, you know
55:17People just wanting a better way of life, that's all
55:20They were like pioneers, you know, going off to a new world
55:24And then they come here and it's worse than what they left
55:29Mm-hmm
55:32Terrible
55:41Mora has left Sharon with one final memento
55:47Wow
55:49A photograph of her great-grandmother Annie
55:54The struggles that this young woman must have gone through just to, you know, stay alive is incredible
56:03She was at an age where she could remember her mother dying in a workhouse and her brothers and sisters
56:11dying
56:13God
56:14What she's experienced, what she had experienced in her life and then
56:19I just hope she found some happiness when she went
56:25Back to the north of England and she obviously married and had three children and one of those children was
56:31my grandfather
56:33But all these women in the family suffered, all of them, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my great-great-grandmother
56:43suffered terribly
56:44But they didn't give up
56:46And I don't really, I must have inherited that from Annie
57:04I never thought for one minute that I would have had an American great-grandmother when we started this whole
57:13thing and
57:15I'm proud that my family came from nothing
57:20Just trying to get some dignity in their lives, just trying to just get by
57:28Yeah, that makes me proud
57:30Let's move into God
58:00Let's join the great-grandmother
58:00Your family have managed prostitution
58:00That Saints