A child lost at 14 months
It is necessary, when The Legal Genealogist is in Utah, to remember Willie.
Her name, perhaps, was Wilhelmina or something fancy like that, but it’s much more likely that it was just plain Willie.
She was born on the 11th of January 1895, we think most likely in Texas.
And she died, we believe, in March of 1896, in Provo, Utah.
And we think she’s the Cottrell child buried in March of 1896 at the City Cemetery in Provo.
And that’s almost all we know.
So very little to tell the story of this little girl.
She lived, she breathed… she died.
Willie was the ninth of 10 known children and sixth known daughter of my great grandparents, Martin Gilbert Cottrell and Martha “Mattie” Johnson.1
There is only oral history, recorded in my branch of the family, to tell of her name. She had an older brother named Sammie,2 so, we think, Willie is a safer bet than anything fancy like Wilhelmina.
Only that recorded oral history tells of her birth — 11 January 1895.3 It tells us nothing of her life. Whether she was dark or fair. Whether she was blue-eyed or brown. Whether she was hearty or frail as an infant. Whether she learned to crawl or to walk. Whether she was babbling or talking or even able to say mama and daddy by the time our family lost her, at just 14 months of age.
And nothing that we know tells us how it came to be that Willie died in Utah. The family was not a Utah family at all — Martin Gilbert Cottrell, or M.G. as he was called, was born in Texas,4 he and Mattie married in Texas,5 they were in Texas before and after Willie’s birth and death,6 and we’re not entirely sure what they were doing in Utah.
Our working theory is that, since M.G. had taken a job as a traveling salesman for the Wrought Iron Range Company7 and was traveling throughout the west, it may be that the family traveled with him for a time.
Two of the known children — Sammie and Willie — died young, and that oral history says that Sammie was the one who died in Utah and Willie in Texas.8 That can’t be correct. Sammie died on 11 April 1892 and was buried in the family plot at Highland Cemetery in Iowa Park, Wichita County, Texas.9
There is, as you can see above, a burial of a Cottrell child recorded in the Provo, Utah City Cemetery.10 That has to be Willie, but the record is singularly uninformative. No first name. No date of birth. No date of death. No parents’ names except for the surname Cottrell. No cause of death. No block and lot number for the grave, only feet north and feet west — of what, it does not say.
So very little to tell the story of this little girl.
She lived, she breathed… she died.
We hope that the fact that her name survived to be passed on to the children and grandchildren of a brother — my grandfather — born after her death11 — means that she was dearly loved and greatly missed.
But we don’t know. And that’s why it is necessary, when The Legal Genealogist is in Utah,12 to remember Willie. At least today, here in Utah, she is remembered by her kin.
Rest in peace, little girl.
SOURCES
- Interview with Opal Robertson Cottrell (Kents Store, VA), by granddaughter Bobette Richardson, 1980s; copy of notes privately held by Judy G. Russell. ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Remembering the birthday boy,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 5 May 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 20 Oct 2018). ↩
- Interview with Opal Robertson Cottrell (Kents Store, VA), by granddaughter Bobette Richardson. ↩
- Texas Department of Health, death certif. no. 13603 (1946), Martin Gilbert Cottrell, 26 Mar 1946; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- Marriage license and return, M G Cottrell-Mattie Johnson, 27 Aug 1874; County Clerk’s Office, Weatherford. ↩
- See 1880 U.S. census, Clay County, Texas, Precinct 4, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 164, p. 492(B) (stamped), dwelling 17, family 17, M.G. Cottrell household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 May 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T9, roll 1296. Also, 1900 U.S. census, Wichita County, Texas, Iowa Park, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 127, p. 238(A) (stamped), dwelling 86, family 86, Martin “Catrell” household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 May 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T623, roll 1679 ↩
- See Ballenger & Richards 25th Annual Denver City Directory (Denver : Ballenger & Richards, 1897) 300, entry for Martin G. Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 7 Mar 2014). ↩
- Interview with Opal Robertson Cottrell (Kents Store, VA), by granddaughter Bobette Richardson. ↩
- Highland Cemetery (Iowa Park, Wichita County, Texas; on Rodgers Road 0.1 mile west of the intersection with Bell Road North, Latitude 33.96704, Longitude -98.6595041), Sammie Cottrell marker; photograph by J.G. Russell, 9 Nov 2002. ↩
- Sexton’s Record, March 1896, Provo City Cemetery; digital images, City of Provo Public Documents (http://publicdocuments.provo.org : accessed 20 Oct 2018). ↩
- Clay Rex Cottrell was born 20 April 1898. See Virginia Department of Health, Certificate of Death, state file no. 70-026729, Clay Rex Cottrell (1970); Division of Vital Records, Richmond. ↩
- I’m here for the semi-annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Board for Certification of Genealogists. ↩
Beautiful. I share her birth date and will now wish her happy birthday, too.
“No block and lot number for the grave, only feet north and feet west — of what, it does not say….”
Did you ask the cemetery about the starting point for those measurements? From a visit to Salt Lake City a number of years ago now, I have a vague recollection of being told by a guide at one of the historic sites that originally, everything in Salt Lake City was laid out on a grid system and described by the location’s distance from the Temple. Like I said, this a a vague memory and I might have misunderstood what was said, but it would be interesting to know whether that might have been the case with the cemetery where your Willie was buried.
I asked the cemetery folks any number of questions, none of which they could answer. Sigh…
How sweet and sad. If only you could at least know in which grave she was buried so as to put a marker.
I always feel so sad when I discover the death of a child when doing my research. So often a child was born and died between censuses, and that accentuates to me that any records are sorely lacking. I also know that it was a common practice to bury an infant or small child the same day he or she died. I cannot imagine the horrific loss for the parents caused by the death and then tearing the wee one away. We often are fortunate if there is a grave marker.
In a trip to Elmwood Memorial Gardens cemetery in Columbia, SC, in July of 2016, I was researching a great-uncle, brother of my paternal grandmother, Joseph Patterson Wilson, who was buried there. He was killed in an automobile accident in December 1916 at the age of 48. I knew of three children living at the time of his death and of another one born to his widow 8 months later. However. it was not until I visited his gravesite that I learned that he and his wife, who were married in January of 1909, had had a baby girl named Frances Wilson who was born and died on a day in February of 1910. The joy of a first pregnancy ended in death and despair. Further, the cemetery records showed that the cemetery lot was purchased the same day and the infant also was buried that day. That poor child was forgotten in all records except those of the cemetery. No birth records were required at the time, and the 1910 census didn’t occur until April 15th that year.
Children like Willie and Frances are the tender ones whose memories that we, as family historians, can preserve and pass along. Thank you for telling as much of Willie’s story as you could discern.
These are the stories that I really think are our sacred trust as genealogists, George. If we don’t tell the stories of these children, nobody ever will.