Govans Cemetery Project
The Whittle Plot
My primary function was to find out who is in the Whittle plot at Govans Presbyterian Cemetery and be able to positively tie those people to the plot itself. I received the final piece of information to do that job from family member Ruth via mail. Ruth was kind enough to go to her local library and get the obituary for Clara May Whittle. As Clara May died in 1946, her obituary is not available through my usual websites. Clara May Whittle obituary from the Baltimore Sun, Tuesday, 11 Dec 1946.1
WHITTLE – On December 10, 1946, at 33 Alleghany Avenue, Towson, CLARA MAY, beloved daughter of the late Samuel N. and Georgianna Higle Whittle.
Services at the Burns Funeral Home, 610 York Road, Towson, on Thursday at 2:30 P.M. Interment in Govans Presbyterian Cemetery.
I can now positively supply the cemetery with five names and dates of people that are buried in the Samuel N. Whittle plot and when they were buried there. I will also supply them the sixth name of Georgianna, wife of Samuel, based on the probability that she is the first occupant of the plot – although I have not completed an exhaustive search of every other possibility.
Samuel N. Whittle, 2nd Lt USA
Born about 1843, Died 7 Oct 1892, Buried 10 Oct 1892
Accidental Death in a fall from a window in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania.
Georgianna Higle Whittle, wife of Samuel N.
Born about 1846, Died between 1874 and 1876
Died of Consumption
Clara May Whittle, daughter of Samuel N.
Born June 1866, Died 10 Dec 1946, Buried 12 Dec 1946
Cause of Death Unknown, age 80.
Margaret (Maggie) Sevilla Whittle, daughter of Samuel N.
Born 1869, Died 3 Oct 1897, Buried 5 Oct 1897
Died of Consumption
Eliza Whittle, mother of Samuel N.
Born about 1815, Died 11 Sep 1896, Buried 13 Sep 1896
Cause of Death Unknown, age 80
Elizabeth Whittle, grandmother of Samuel N.
Born 12 Oct 1785, Died 19 Jun 1877, Buried 21 Jun 1877
Cause of Death Unknown, age 91
One of the things that hopefully occurs when you work a family is that you begin to wonder about their lives. What is it with the Whittle family and missing men – is it just bad luck? Even though I now know that Elizabeth was married to Jeremiah Whittle, I still don’t know the name of Eliza’s husband. Somewhere in a dusty pile of paper there is something with his name on it. I hate that his identity is currently lost to time.
Why does one branch of a family tree come to a complete stop? Samuel goes to war, returns home, marries and starts a family. He has a wife and two daughters and appears to have a successful business. Georgianna dies young, his grandmother dies shortly thereafter, and Samuel’s mother Eliza lives with him and helps raise the girls. Their life appears to be quiet for about 15 years and then Samuel dies in the fall from the window and everything changes. Within five short years of Samuel’s death, Eliza dies and young Maggie dies at the home of her father’s brother Charles Nicholas. Clara never marries and remains with her unmarried cousins on her mother’s side of the family until her death in 1946.
So at this point I will wrap up the Govans Cemetery Project concerning the Whittle Plot, but I am hardly done with the Whittle family. As happens in genealogy and family history, you become attached to families and you form a connection with the people that are researching them. Ruth and I have shared quite a bit of correspondence and I have a lot of documentation that I would still like to do with the Whittle family. There is a lot of research left to be done and I’ll keep working on it, but without the Govans Cemetery Project tag. There are other names in the cemetery to work and I’ll have to get started on them while I continue with the Whittles.
1. “Death Notices,” The Sun, 11 Dec 1946