Mother of author Agatha Christie.

Clara was born to a British Army officer, Lieutenant Frederick Boehmer (1813?-1863; from 1857, captain), and his second wife, Mary Ann "Polly" West (1834-1919), who married in 1851; Clara was their only daughter. Although most published biographies about her famous daughter claim that Clara was born in Belfast, her father's military service records, regimental histories, and multiple census records establish that she was born in Dublin.* She was baptized there at the garrison chapel on 14 March 1854.

Her full siblings included Frederick Charles Boehmer (1851-1909), Harry Kelsey Boehmer (1856-1857), Ernest Edward Boyce Boehmer, OBE (1859-1944), and Harry Miller Boehmer (1861-1938); her half-siblings by her father's first wife, Jane (maiden name unknown), included Theodore Frederick, Henry William, Charles, and Adelaide Boehmer, all of whom died by 1847.

Thanks to the peripatetic life of army officers, Clara probably took her very first steps in Piraeus, Greece, near Athens. Frederick was promoted to captain in November 1857 and retired from the army in September 1860; the following month, the family moved to St. Helier, Jersey.

Her father's death left the family in straitened circumstances. As a result, Clara was fostered by her aunt, Margaret West Miller, and Margaret's new husband, Massachusetts-born businessman Nathaniel Frary Miller. (Nine-year old Clara was actually an "official" witness at their April 1863 wedding. As Nathaniel's will shows, she was never adopted by the Millers.) She attended a school run by Mrs. Eliza Williamson at Culcheth Hall, Bowdon, near their new home in Timperley, Cheshire. Clara was fond of her uncle, and in 1869 accompanied Nathaniel's widow, son, and brother, along with Clara's mother, to New York for his funeral. This was her first visit to the U.S.; she stayed for almost three months.

On 11 April 1878, at St. Peter's Church, Notting Hill, in London, she married Nathaniel's son by his first marriage, Frederick Alvah Miller. Their wedding breakfast was held at the home of the bride's maternal aunt Ada Maria Caroline West Gunning-Moore, at 92 Palace Gardens Terrace in Kensington. The newly married pair spent their honeymoon in Switzerland.

Clara and Fred settled in Torquay, Devon, where in early 1881 they completed the purchase of a long-term leasehold of a pleasant villa called Ashfield.** In the early years of their marriage, two children were born: Margaret Frary and Louis Montant. Their third and final child became renowned author Agatha Christie.

The Millers led an active social life: Agatha remembered that each week, her parents went out to dinner two or three times, and themselves hosted at least "one big dinner". Among the guests entertained at Ashfield were Rudyard Kipling and Henry James. Despite her social obligations, Clara was unconventional--the kind of mother who happily got down onto the floor to play with her young children. She also made up original stories to tell Agatha at bedtime. It was Clara who taught Agatha history, and read with her regularly.

Fred's death in November 1901 prostrated Clara. The following January, her elder daughter took her to France to recuperate. Madge married later that year, and in August 1903 Clara welcomed her first grandchild, James "Jack" Watts. Her second and last grandchild was Agatha's daughter, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa, born in August 1919. While Clara's primary residence remained Ashfield, she made frequent visits to Madge in Cheshire and to Agatha in Berkshire. The daughters, in turn, stayed with her in Devon. Agatha remembered the pleasure she took in driving her mother around in her second-hand Morris Cowley.

An introverted woman with an underlying streak of melancholy, Clara was imaginative, creative, and spiritual; she enjoyed literature and travel--over her lifetime, she visited the USA, Switzerland, France, and Egypt. She died from heart disease at Cheadle Hall, Cheshire, the home of her daughter Madge Watts, and was buried in Ealing in the grave of her late husband. The West Middlesex Gazette on 10 April 1926, page 2, carried a notice that her funeral had taken place the previous day.
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*One of Agatha Christie's biographers, who gives Belfast as Clara's birthplace, claimed to have seen Clara's "birth certificate". That is impossible, because Ireland did not begin civil registration of births until 1864. Of the eight currently available censuses (seven UK, one US), Dublin is named in five; the remaining three say simply, "Ireland". On the 1911 census, Clara herself wrote "Dublin" on the form with her own hand. In addition, her father's army service record states that she was baptized in Dublin [Statement of Services: Frederick Boehmer, 91st Foot. The National Archives, Kew. WO 76/456, page 57]; this agrees with the original baptismal certificate held by The Christie Archive Trust.

Since she was born in Ireland, Clara was entitled to British citizenship under jus soli. However, upon marrying a U.S. citizen in 1878, she automatically lost her British nationality and acquired that of her new husband, due to a provision in the Act of Naturalisation 1870, 33 Vict. cap. 14; in the eyes of the law, she remained an American to the day she died. In 1920 she attempted to obtain a British passport, on the grounds that her late father-in-law had become a British citizen in 1866; the Passport Office explained to her that Nathaniel Frary Miller's certificate of naturalization had not extended to his son. (Nathaniel had been naturalized under the "Act relating to the laws of naturalisation", 7 & 8 Vict. cap. 66, which was very different from the 1870 Act.) They offered her instead a British passport "without statement of nationality", and advised her to apply for citizenship. She chose not to apply, but nonetheless continued registering to vote in British elections until her death. [NATIONALITY AND NATURALISATION (including Certificates of British Origin): Other Matters: Mrs. Clarissa Miller. National status. The National Archives, Kew. HO 45/11026/413928]

Legally, both Madge and Agatha were born as American citizens, and only achieved British citizenship through marriage. While entitled to British citizenship by birth on British soil, they would each have needed to apply for it.

**The oft-told tale that Clara herself had "bought" Ashfield in Torquay, to the shock of her unknowing and passive husband in far-off London (or in far-off America, depending upon which version you are reading), needs to be corrected. First, the Ashfield freehold was not in fact for sale; all that was available in autumn 1880 was the remaining term left on a 99-year leasehold, created in 1833, which terminated on 30 June 1932. The leasehold was then held by the widow of William Browne. The Millers paid "ground rent" of £15, 15 shillings per year. Second, as a married woman in England, Clara could not legally sign a contract; only her husband could make an agreement regarding freehold or leasehold property and execute a valid contract. Simply put, Clara's signature on a document, even a rental agreement or a will, was worthless, and no estate agent or solicitor would have accepted it. It was not until the Married Women's Property Act of 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. cap. 75)--passed in August 1882 and effective as of 1 January 1883-- that married women in England, Wales, and Ireland obtained this basic legal right (the new law did not apply to Scotland). The purchase of the Ashfield leasehold was completed in January 1881 (Torquay Times, 28 January 1881, page 4); the Millers were living there by mid-May (Torquay Times, 20 May 1881, page 4).

--Tosca-by-the-River 2019