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A Monumental Love Story
By
Marilyn Demas
(Published June 2005)
Victorian cemeteries, such as the Sacramento Historic
City Cemetery at 10th Street and Broadway, were
originally developed as beautiful parks with a profusion
of seasonal flowers. Today, at the City Cemetery, people
continue to take garden walks, while some research
ancestry and others go on historical tours.
One
favorite tour stop is at the monument of Georgia Fisher,
who died four days before her intended wedding day in
1875. Sacramento resident Helen Kirtlan Fingado
explains, "Georgia Fisher was the eldest of the nine
children of Thomas Kirtlan and Narcissus Fisher Kirtlan,
who settled in the busy little river town of Freeport."
Tom Kirtlan was the town's blacksmith in the early
1870s.
At age
17, Fisher went to work as a domestic for the Bergman
family in Sacramento, whose home was at 30th and N
streets, also the site of their pottery business. Martin
Bergman was a Swedish immigrant and sculptor whose
mother had hired Fisher. “Martin, several years older
than Georgia, was soon charmed by this lovely,
intelligent young woman,” says Don Gerimonte, a San
Francisco resident and descendant of the Bergmans.
According to Pat Pors, another Bergman descendant, “The
Christmas season of 1875 was particularly festive at the
Bergman household." Fisher, then 19, and the Bergman
family were happily preparing for Fisher's and Martin's
wedding, to be held on New Year's Day of the centennial
year at Westminster Presbyterian Church at 13th and N
streets. “In the bustle of the holiday season and with
making last‑minute preparations for her wedding, Fisher
became ill and died suddenly of typhoid pneumonia four
days before the wedding,” says Pors.
Descendants of both families recount how Martin Bergman
tearfully constructed the tile base on which he placed
delicate angels for the monument that held an exquisite
statue of the angel Gabriel, sculpted by his father, and
an ornate pedestal created by his brother. A picture of
Fisher was taken according to Victorian custom, after
her death, and is the only likeness of Fisher known to
exist. The picture was placed beneath a plaque bearing
her name.
Throughout the years, vandalism, theft and natural
forces have taken their toll on the monument, leaving
only a shadow of its original beauty. But restoration is
now beginning to preserve the work produced by one of
Sacramento's earliest premier potters. Bergman Brother's
Pottery was renown in the 1860s for its use of high
quality terra cotta, a quality Gladding, McBean of
Lincoln became known for after 1875. The Old City
Cemetery Committee is involved in the restoration.
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