WINDFALL—LATE!

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 10 December 1927, Page 15

WINDFALL—LATE!

AT SEVENTY-EIGHT. £3OOO. Mrs Eliza Burt, aged seveuty-elght, sistef of the late Clara Morris, who was America’s foremost actress before she died two years ago, has been found living in a poverty-stricken tentement in the “Hell’s Kitchen” district of New York. She was going blind, and is racked with rheumatism, but has been notified she is her sister’s only surviving relative, and entitled to the estate valued' at more than £3OOO. Eliza and Clara were the daughters of a Toronto cabman, who deserted their mother, who was a domestic ser. vant. when Eliza was nine months old and Clara was three years. The mother, who was unable to support both gave Eliza to a butcher named Burt, aud his wife, living in Buffalo. ILL-TREATED. The two sisters never saw each oihcr again, and while Clara rose to the highest rank as an actress, Eliza took the name of Burt, and was treated cruelly by the second wife of the butcher. Eliza was finally turned out of her home, and experienced constant mis fortune, while all the time Clara was rising to the heights of fortune. Each realised vaguely that she had a sister, but was unable to find her. Eliza now say's that she had a quefr instinct that her sister might have been Clara Morris, but the feeling was not sufficiently strong for her to follow it up. Enza married, but her husband was killed in the civil war. and she received a small pension, which was her sole supportwhen she was discovered.