Clara's mother died when she was only seven months old. She always said that she was reared by an aunt, probably her mother's sister, Mary "Mollie" Price Dodgen, who lived on the neighboring property at the time Clara's mother died. Perhaps Clara's father asked his sister-in-law to help with the baby, and after he remarried nearly a year later, Clara stayed with her aunt. Living so close by, she grew up involved in the lives of her siblings. Her sister, Mattie, married Bill Ledbetter in October 1897. Nearly two years later, in August of 1899, Clara married Bill's brother, Roy Ledbetter.

Clara's name at birth was Clara Sara Shugart. The 1900 census shows her as "Clara S." (which could stand for either Sara or Shugart), but in 1910, she appears as "Clara M." Two of Clara's daughters said that she changed her middle name because she thought Maud was a pretty name and she liked it better than Sara.

The 1920 census shows that Roy was working as a ranch foreman near Phoenix, Arizona, where eighth child, Ada Lee, was born in April of 1920. They were only in Arizona a few years when they finished their push west by moving to California. In 1930 they are living in San Diego, California, where, at age 42, Clara gave birth to her last child, Archie James. With only her last two children at home and in their teens, she was widowed at age 55. The photo shows Clara with Archie on the day he reported for overseas duty during World War II.

She made beautiful needlework and taught her daughters the fine art of crochet. For many years she lived in a small frame house behind the movie theater in Chula Vista. She was watched over by her good friend and landlord Sam Copeland until her failing heart took her to the Martin Rest Home in Lemon Grove, California, where she died in September of 1952. She was cremated at the Greenwood Crematory in San Diego. A Findagrave volunteer found that the Mt Hope Cemetery map shows her as buried in the same plot with her husband.