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In life and in death

It is perhaps something only a genealogist would notice.

But it is still something ineffably sad.

The separations of a babe from her mother, in life and in death.

She rests with her paternal grandparents in the Mobridge, South Dakota, City Cemetery.

Katherine Mattie Berens, the stone reads,1 marking the resting place of this second cousin of The Legal Genealogist.

That’s not quite her name on her birth certificate. It’s spelled Catherine there.2

And it’s not quite her name on her death certificate, either. It’s spelled Catherine there too.3

Catherine

But you put those three together and they still tell one complete and incredibly sad story.

The story of separations.

She was born 19 November 1933, Selby, South Dakota.

She died 21 November 1933, Selby, South Dakota.

No matter what time she was born on the 19th — and her birth certificate just says 5 __m, not am or pm4 — and no matter what time she died on the 21st — and her death certificate simply says the doctor last saw her alive at 4 p.m.5 — recording her age at death as three days is itself an overstatement.

Her parents were John Berens, recorded as a 26-year-old pool hall operator, and Mattie (Cottrell) Berens, his 22-year-old wife. Both were born in South Dakota.6

John’s parents, little Catherine’s grandparents, were John and Mary (Goergen) Berens. Theirs are the stones that sit in the same plot with Catherine’s.7

Mattie’s parents were my grandfather’s brother John W. Cottrell and his first wife, Emilia Beitelspacher.8 Emilia, called Emma, died when Mattie was only three; her stone is also in the Mobridge City Cemetery, in a different plot.9

Catherine was Mattie’s first live-born child, separated from her mother in less than 72 hours.

The ineffable sadness of the story of this little family is that Mattie does not rest with her baby daughter. She lies instead with her father, John, her stepmother Abigail (Claymore) Cottrell, and her brother Philip in a plot they share at the Greenwood Cemetery in Mobridge.10

Mattie’s death certificate records that she and John Berens were divorced by the time of her death in 1980.11 That certainly explains why she was buried with her family and not with the family of her former husband.

But it tugs at the heart of this genealogist that Catherine and her mother — separated after so short a life — are separated even in their resting places as well.


Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The separations,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 24 July 2021).

SOURCES

  1. Mobridge City Cemetery, Walworth County, South Dakota, Katherine Mattie Berens marker; digital image, memorial 201450279, Find A Grave (https://findagrave.com : accessed 24 July 2021).
  2. South Dakota Department of Health, Birth Certif. No. 406476, Catherine Berens, 19 November 1933; Office of Vital Records, Pierre.
  3. South Dakota Department of Health, Death Certif. No. 153004, Catherine Berens, 21 November 1933; Office of Vital Records, Pierre.
  4. S.D. Dept. of Health, Birth Certif. No. 406476, Catherine Berens, 19 Nov 1933.
  5. S.D. Dept. of Health, Death Certif. No. 153004, Catherine Berens, 21 Nov 1933.
  6. S.D. Dept. of Health, Birth Certif. No. 406476, Catherine Berens, 19 Nov 1933.
  7. Mobridge City Cemetery, Walworth County, South Dakota, Berens markers; digital image, memorials 140186454 and 140186477, Find A Grave (https://findagrave.com : accessed 24 July 2021).
  8. South Dakota Department of Health, Record of Marriage, state file no. 12259, John Cottrell and Emelia Beitelspacher, 8 July 1908; Division of Public Health Statistics, Pierre.
  9. Ibid., Emma Cottrell marker, memorial 140206390.
  10. See Greenwood Cemetery, Walworth County, South Dakota, markers for John W. Cottrell (memorial 86885342), Abigail M. Cottrell (memorial 97100392), Philip P. Cottrell (memorial 86885833) and Mattie Lee Berens (memorial 155717975); digital image, memorials 140186454 and 140186477, Find A Grave (https://findagrave.com : accessed 24 July 2021).
  11. South Dakota Department of Health, Death Certif. No. 140-80-000376, Mattie L. Berens, 3 January 1980; Office of Vital Records, Pierre.