Catherine Elizabeth Mattingly 1907-1936

Lottie, Catherine & Ham Mattingly

110 years ago on June 21, 1907 William Alfred Bryant Mattingly and his wife Lottie of Marion County, Kentucky had a daughter they named Catherine Elizabeth. She was my husband's Aunt, but she died before he was born. She had two older brothers, William Robert and Benedict Boone; two older sisters, Mary Etta and Eliza Celeste; and a baby brother Joseph Hamilton, who was two years younger. She also had two older half siblings, John Raymond and Josephine Mattingly. A half-sister, Gertrude, died before Catherine was born and her father died before she turned three. They all lived in Marion County, Kentucky.

"Young Woman Succumbs

Miss Catherine E. Mattingly, 29 years old, passed away at 4:00 o'clock Tuesday morning at the home of D. A. and W. B. Bickett on the National Cemetery Road near Calvary where she had made her home with her mother, Mrs. Lottie Mattingly, for sixteen years.  Her death was due to bonchial (sic) pneumonia which developed following a ten months illness of a complication of diseases.  

Miss Mattingly was graduated from the Calvary High School in 1928, after which she took a nurses' training course at a hospital in St. Louis, Mo.  Later she went to Indianapolis, Ind., where she served at St. Francis' Hospital until forced by ill health to give up her work and return home.  She was a daughter of the late William A. Mattingly, and Mrs. Lottie Boone Mattingly, and was born in this county June 21, 1907.  She was a faithful member of Holy Mary's Catholic Church at Calvary and was a young woman possessing many traits which endeared her to a wide circle of friends.  

Besides her mother, she is survived by one sister, Mrs. Virgil Dennison of Indianapolis, Ind.; three brothers, Boone Mattingly of Louisville and Robert and Hamilton Mattingly of Lebanon, and one half-brother, Raymond Mattingly of Louisville.  

Funeral services were held at 9:00 o'clock yesterday morning at Holy Mary's Church at Calvary by the Rev. Robert Canty, and burial was in Holy Mary's Cemetery. 

The pallbearers were:  Garland Luckett, Paul Bland, Joseph Ford, George Spalding, Vincent Spalding and Kelly Thomas."

It is now known that what Catherine went to St Louis, Missouri for was to have a child. She lived at the "St. Ann's Widow's Home, Lying-In Hospital and Foundling Asylum". Catherine's son was born in November, 1928. He found his birth family in the 1990's, too late to meet his birth mother. 

On October 13, 1936 Catherine passed away at only 29. Her official cause of death was "carcinoma of breast, with general metastosis".   She had fought breast cancer for 2 years.

Along with the death certificate, obituary and papers from St. Ann's Home, that my sister-in-law had in a file was this poem.  The author is unknown, she may have written this herself. 

A Broken Hearted Girl

I am dreaming, dreaming dear,
Wondering here tonight
Thinking only dear, of you
In the moon-light

Some day you'll be sorry
And think of what I've said
Yes, you will think of me
When I'm dead 

How my heart is sad and broken?

How I long and sigh and pine?
How the memories come stealing?
How I think of the flight of time?

It will be too late I fear
When you will think and do what's right
Now you'll remember this I've said
Here in the moonlight

December 15, 1928

She was reunited with her son when he passed away in 2014.