It’s time once again for #FlashbackFriday with the Whitewater Historical Society. This week’s summertime image from the Scholl collection is an interesting gravestone from Hillside Cemetery. The Scholl collection has many Hillside Cemetery images and this one is particularly poignant. This fine gravestone marks the burial site of Kitty Govier, who died 124 years ago on August 17, 1900. She was the wife of W. E. Govier, who was a photographer in Whitewater for only a couple of years around 1900. He and Kitty came from Fennimore, Wisconsin and after only about a year, Kitty died at the age of 32. About six months later, W. E. Govier sold his photography studio and returned to Fennimore, leaving Kitty in Hillside Cemetery.

Update on 8/16 @ 11:15 a.m.: Patty Beran sent the following additionally sad information to the Banner: “Kitty Govier died 3 days after giving birth. The infant also died (or was born dead). The infant is buried with the mother. Her widow Ed remarried and they had a daughter in 1907.” Historian Carol Cartwright, who kindly provides the #FlashbackFridays for the Whitewater Historical Society, responded that although these details were not included in her source material, “I would not doubt that it is the case.  Mother and infant mortality was high then.”

Join us next week for more from the Whitewater Historical Society.

(3604GP, Whitewater Historical Society)