It looks as if Glee creator Ryan Murphy’s latest endeavours with the streaming giant Netflix are all going to be smash hits, as following the release of Circus of Books, we have A Secret Love.
Released on Wednesday, April 29th, A Secret Love charts the relationship of two baseball players spanning seven decades: Pat Henschel and Terry Donahue.
Pat and Terry were players on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the league which inspired 1992 sports comedy A League of Their Own. But what the film did not capture was the secret love story between Pat and Terry.
Find out about the women behind the love story and more about what happened next for the couple.
Who are Pat Henschel and Terry Donahue?
Terry Donahue is a former player of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She played mainly as a catcher for the Peoria Redwings through the years 1946 to 1949.
After leading the Redwings, Terry opted for a change of careers. Up until the late 1980s, Terry worked for an interior design firm in Chicago in accounting and bookkeeping.
In 1998, Terry was inducted into both the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame.
Less is known about Pat, as she did not have a career in the limelight.
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Pat and Terry’s Secret Love story
The couple met in 1947 while Terry Donahue was in Canada, taking a break during her off-season. Terry was 22 when they met, Pat was 18.
For the next years, Pat would join Terry on her baseball tours, following her wherever she went. They later moved in together as “roommates” in Chicago, Illinois. They spent the next six decades as a secret couple before coming out to their families in 2009. Both women were then in their eighties.
Pat’s great-nephew Christopher Bolan was the director of the documentary. They filmed it between 2013 and 2018, tracking the couple’s romance in modern day America, including their marriage. They were married in 2015.
Terry Donahue died aged 93 in March 2019 after a series of complications from Parkinson’s Disease.
If it’s not love like Pat Herschel and Terry Donahue I don’t want it. #ASecretLove
— Kendall (@kendally_13) April 30, 2020
Where is Pat Henschel now?
In 2017, the couple moved to Saskatchewan, Canada so Terry could be closer to her family towards the end of her life. Both women were from Saskatchewan but Pat was hesitant to move home, as they had only recently obtained their freedoms in America.
Now 91 years old, Pat currently lives in Edmonton, Canada at an assisted living facility.
Chris Bolan recently told the Chicago Tribune that Pat spends her time “going to casinos and movie theatres and playing bingo.”
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