♀Bertha E. Curtis

Bertha E. Curtis (April 1863 – 8 November 1917) was a woman of New York birth who lived and died unmarried at Chicago. Her father’s obituary called her “an attorney of Chicago”; her own death record gives her trade as child nurse. She was the grand-aunt of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the sister of his grandfather Hubert Orestes Curtis (1868–1922).

Life

She was born in New York in April 1863, a daughter of Thomas Day Curtis (1824–1896) and Annis Wheaton (1827–1883), and grew up as the family followed her father’s newspaper work. In June 1875 the state census found her at Syracuse, a daughter in her parents’ household, and gave an age that puts her birth about 1864.

By 1896 she had gone to Chicago. When her father’s obituary that year listed his surviving children, she was one of five at Chicago, with her sister Mary Ada, who was then Mrs. Cone Williams, and her brothers George, Arthur and Hubert. The obituary describes her as “Miss Bertha E. Curtis, an attorney of Chicago”. Her death record, twenty-one years later, gives her occupation as child nurse, and the records do not say how the two descriptions fit together.

She died at Chicago on 8 November 1917, aged 54 and unmarried. Her death records name her parents as “Thos D. Curtis” and “Annis Wheaton”, and she was buried on 11 November at Evergreen cemetery. No marriage or child is recorded for her.

Notes

Her birth

Two Illinois death records give April 1863 for her birth, and the 1875 census gives her age as eleven, about 1864. The state census of June 1865 lists a girl of one named Bertha and, beside her, a girl of two written “Horatel”, which fits her sister Florabel, born about 1863. If so, Florabel was the elder, though both sisters are dated about 1863.

Her name

Her middle initial E comes from her death records. The census pages and indexes give her as “Bertha U”, “Bertha V”, “Bertha W” and “Bertha M”; each is one girl, the only Bertha in the household.