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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Sad Grave of Kate McCormick
Friday, November 20, 2015
In a quiet corner of the Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis oldest active, is the grave of 21 year old woman who died after childbirth on February 1, 1876. The tombstone on her grave read:
Unwed, she died from abortion, her only choice.
Abandoned in life and death by family.
With but a single rose from her mother.
Buried only through the kindness of unknown benefactors.
Died Feb.1875 (sic) age 21.
Victim of an unforgiving society
Have mercy on us.
Photo credit: www.findagrave.com
Kate McCormick, whose real name was Kate Simpson, was a handsome young woman of about twenty-one years of age from Humboldt, Tennessee. Kate was seduced and made pregnant by a shoemaker named George Burgess, who was her fathers friend, under the false promise of marrying her. When he failed to follow through, Kate was so disgraced that she left her hometown and came to Memphis.
Three weeks before Christmas, Kate came to Dr. Johnson in Memphis and told him her story and asked the doctor to abort her child. Dr. Johnson later told the court that he had advised her not to commit abortion as it was against the law, and she went away. Three weeks later, on a Saturday night, Kate secured a room at a boardinghouse run by Mrs. Widrig, where she delivered a dead baby girl the following morning. When Mrs. Widrig learned that Dr. Johnson had been attending her, her suspicions were aroused and she asked Katie to tell her the whole truth. Kate broke down and confessed.
Mrs. Widrig, I think my time is short, she told Mrs. Widrig. Dr. Johnson gave the medicine to destroy my child; tell Dr. Johnson that I promised not to deceive him or tell any person but the time has come when I can keep the secret no longer; I paid Dr. Johnson twenty-five dollars for the medicine; he gave me the medicine some three weeks ago and said if it did not work in six days it would be a failure; I took the medicine from Dr. Johnson to kill my child and paid him twenty-five dollars for it.'"
Kate died a short while later. An inquest was held where the jury found Dr. Johnson guilty of murder by committing an abortion.
Kates mother was called upon but she had no desire to pay the last sad tribute to the ashes of her daughter, evidently more troubled about the publicity given to the affair than about the fate of her erring and unfortunate child. She instructed that her deceased daughter be not interred near her home, but buried in Memphis instead.
More than a century later, the plight of Katie McCormick touched the sympathetic sentiment of a thoughtful lady who paid for a marker to be placed at the young woman's grave in September 1997, bearing the inscription cited in the beginning of this article.
A lovely tribute as it was, however, as Nashville Daily American wrote, her actual interment may have been considerably less theatrical than this inscription suggests, as it attributes a lovely gesture by her mother which was probably not made, after all and her benefactors were not unknown, one being a newspaper reporter and the other a kind-hearted saloonist.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/11/the-sad-grave-of-kate-mccormick.html
http://www.tngenweb.org/records/davidson/misc/nda76/nda76-05.htm
ffr
(22,669 posts)Tess49
(1,579 posts)I'll have to make a trip and place that rose - many roses - for all the women who have died, and will die, because of cruel hearts and sick minds.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)EvolveOrConvolve
(6,452 posts)Funny, I don't remember a post from you condemning the church.
rug
(82,333 posts)Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Sounds kind of asshole-esque.
rug
(82,333 posts)I know you and evolvo don't have much to do hosting A&A anymore but go back to jpr if you two want to troll.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)We need to hold ALL of those accountable that are causing this to happen.
It is not assholeish to point out those that are making these things happen just because one is a religion.
rug
(82,333 posts)Your cohost evolvo attempts to make a point about the RCC by challenging the religion of a DUer. Your shtick is getting very old.
Derailing and trolling are indeed asshole tactics.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Not sure what this has to do with the point at hand other than deflection.
And since that is the option you took, I'm done. Have the last word. Nothing worthwhile will come from this anymore.
rug
(82,333 posts)You were done a long time ago.
EvolveOrConvolve
(6,452 posts)Wouldn't you? The Catholic church has a condom policy that has helped spread the AIDS disease in Africa and caused untold numbers of unwanted pregnancies. And since the Catholic church is also an anti-abortion organization (the largest in the world I might add), it's essentially forcing births on poor and uneducated Africans, continuing the generational cycle of hopelessness. But I suspect that's what the church intends.
Your outrage at the story in the OP is noted, however the abortion laws at the time were a direct result of Christian religious policies. Your outrage that someone would point out the hypocrisy is also noted, with interest.
Response to EvolveOrConvolve (Reply #28)
Post removed
AwakeAtLast
(14,124 posts)On a Democratic website.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)some responsibility for deaths that come as a result of anti-abortion laws they have pushed?
AwakeAtLast
(14,124 posts)Response to AwakeAtLast (Reply #16)
Post removed
AwakeAtLast
(14,124 posts)Got it.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)YMMV
Response to AwakeAtLast (Reply #9)
Post removed
rug
(82,333 posts)You?
charlyvi
(6,537 posts)Tell that to Biden, Kerry, Kaine and many many other Catholics, both male and female.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Surely you understand that.
And one can be Catholic and condemn the church on some of it's policies, yes?
charlyvi
(6,537 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 24, 2017, 01:13 PM - Edit history (1)
Tennessee is not a hotbed of Catholicism. The post was answered with a question about her religion. It's none of anyone's business. Then an insinuation that she ought to condemn the RCC's policies in Africa. She wasn't speaking about the RCC's conduct in Africa. She was speaking about a girl in Tennessee, a Baptist girl most probably, who died as the result of botched abortion. The reply's insinuation that the OP ought to condemn the RCC policies in Africa because he/she posted about a Tennessee girl's abortion is a reply that wants an argument. The OP was not intending to be the conscience of the Roman Catholic Church, as the reply was trying to manipulate her into being. Surely you understand that.
AwakeAtLast
(14,124 posts)dionysus
(26,467 posts)Sparkly
(24,149 posts)... and then some.
I don't understand the controversy in the thread. To me, this is an argument FOR safe, legal abortion, as well as birth control, as well as getting over the mystique of virginity and stigma of women's sexuality.
MichMary
(1,714 posts)she was apparently under a physician's care, so actually she was more a victim of primitive medical technology than illegal abortion.