The Dean Cemetery in West Edinburgh is impressive. Academics, clergy, financiers, politicians, physicians and other elites from the city’s past rest within its walls, their graves marked by grand headstones. The resting place of Katherine Lettice Curtis (nee Foster) is marked by a modest yet dignified Roman cross headstone. It is in good condition. She died on November 8, 1918, at age twenty-five, at 10 Coates Crescent Edinburgh (a Nursing Home). According to her death registration, she had battled “acute influenza” for nineteen days before contracting broncho-pneumonia alongside an additional infection. Catherine was seven months pregnant when she caught influenza. Compared to men, women were generally more resilient against Spanish influenza; pregnancy, however, severely diminished this resilience. Tragically, on October 25, Katherine gave birth prematurely to a daughter named Pamela, who lived for eight hours. Baby Pamela rests with her mother in Dean Cemetery.
Katherine Lettice Foster was born in Glouster in January 1893, the oldest child of Herbert, an Anglican clergyman, and Edith (nee Sutton). She was baptised at All Saints Church on April 9. When the 1901 Census was taken, the Foster Family lived at the All Saints Vicarage. The family had grown with the arrival of Herbert Jr in October 1895. atherine’s paternal aunt (also named Katherine) resided in the household.
By 1911, the Fosters had left Glouster and relocated to St Thomas’ Vicarage, Groombridge, Sussex. Katherine, aged eighteen, remained in the familial home.
Like the majority of households, the Fosters suffered a war bereavement. Herbert Jr was killed in action at Ypres, Belgium, on October 29 1914. he Menin Gate bears his name.
On August 28 1917, Katherine married Royal Navy Lieutenant Gerald Curteis H.N. in East Grinstead, Sussex.
Katherine’s obituary was published in The Scotsman on Armistice Day. Her death registration cites her usual address as 16 Clinton Crescent, St Leonards on Sea, Hastings, that of her parents. The obituary, however, quotes 10 Grosvenor Street as Gerald’s. I expect the latter was her marital home, yet she resided with her parents whilst her husband was at sea. Gerald was present at both the deaths of his wife and daughter. Like her mother, Pamela also died at 10 Coates Crescent. The most likely explanation is that Katherine remained there afterwards to convalesce before her own untimely death. The premature delivery would have severely impacted her physical (and mental) constitution, making her vulnerable to infections, including those unrelated to the influenza.
Katherine’s funeral took place the day after the Armistice at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral on Palmerston Place.
Gerald remarried in 1936 to Mary Dolla Darby in Kensington, Middlesex. The couple had two children. Gerald died in Greenwich on February 24, 1972.
Sources: Ancestry, British Newspaper Archive, Scotland’s People.
Broken Columns 