In June 2021, I was on a family vacation in Montague, Michigan. Montague, Michigan is a town on the north end of White Lake with a population of approx. 2300 residents. On the sound end of White Lake is another small town - Whitehall - with a population of approx. 2700. Both of those towns are approx. 50 minutes north from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Of course, during the vacation, I had to visit a few antique stores. The very first store I went into in Montague, I found this amazing antique photo album and to my surprise, there were about 3o original photos within the album and even more of a surprise, there were names and dates on the back of the photos!
I have no idea where this album came from - if it was a personal album from a family or if it was from a professional photography studio. It was tucked away in the last aisle of the store and I immediately felt a connection to it. Even the store clerk was surprised to find the album with photos intact within and said to me I was lucky to find this and she wondered where it came from!
When I got home, I started exploring the photos and looking at the back of each photo and try to make a connection between them. On the very first page of the album was this photo of of young woman. On the back of the photo someone wrote:
"Committed suicide September 4, 1894. Mamie Kuite - Mrs Geo Huntley - 1886."
I have no idea why, but I immediately felt a connection with the photo and I felt like I had an obligation tell her story.
The Life of Mamie Kuite
Maria Mamie Kuite
Born: November 18, 1872; Holland, Michigan
Died: September 4, 1894; Holland, Michigan
Father: Jakob C Kuijte (1838; Herkingen, Netherlands - 1916; Holland, Michigan)
Mother: Adriana Slooter (1837; Dordrecht, Netherlands - 1921; Holland, Michigan)
Siblings:
Adrian (1859-1926)
Cornelius (1863-1944)
Jacob (1866-1936)
Frank (1868-1923)
Adriaana (1871-1930)
Fred (1879-1922)
Spouse: George J Huntley (1870-1949)
Mamie's father, Jacob, was born in Herkingen, Netherlands. Herkingen is a small coastal village on the island of Goree-Overflakkee - 80 miles southwest of Amsterdam. He immigrated sometime between 1847-1950 when he was a teenager. He married Adriana Slooter in 1857 in Holland, Michigan.
Mamie's mother, Adriana, was born in Goudswaard, Netherlands. Goudswaard is a small coastal village in the Hoeksche Waard - 70 miles southwest from Amsterdam. She immigrated in 1855 when she was 18 years old.
Jacob and Adriana had 9 children but only 7 survived passed infancy. The Kuite family were members of the First Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan.
On the 1880 US Census, when Maime was 8 years old, her father Jacob and oldest brother, Adrian, worked as butchers. From digital collections, this is the extent of information about the life of the Kuite family before 1880 and up until early the 1900's.
On August 16, 1894, Maime Kuite married George J Huntley - Maime was 22 years and George was 24. The wedding took place at the First Reformed Church.
Who was George J. Huntley?
George James Huntley was born on February 13, 1870 in London, England. He immigrated when he was two years old with his parents - James and Julia Huntley. According to his obituary, George's father, James Huntley, was a "leading citizen of Holland" and owned and operated the first furniture enterprises in Holland, Michigan. Needless to say, the Huntley's were very wealthy and a well known family in the small town of Holland.
George had six siblings with him being the oldest. The second oldest, Mary, was also born in England, the other five siblings were born in Holland, Michigan.
Now, there is a strange connection with one of George's siblings. The fourth eldest - Nellie D. Huntley also committed suicide the exact same way as Mamie, only three months prior in 1894.
Nellie Huntley was born in 1874 in Holland, Michigan and died in 1894 at 21 years old.
Notice how in Nellie's obituary it was stated that she left a note to her lover with who she had been quarreling with and blamed the lover for the suicide. Keep in mind, the Huntley's were very prominent and influential residents of the city and I'm shocked there wasn't mention of who this lover was in the obituary. If the family approved of the person, or if they were engaged, wouldn't a name be listed in the newspaper article? I would think so. So who was this lover?
Fast forward three months...
George and Mamie were married on August 16, 1894...Mamie committed suicide on September 4, 1894 - just three weeks after her wedding.
This last article has the most interesting details - "Three weeks ago his 22 year old son George married suddenly the girl he had cruelly wronged and who bore him a child within a few days"
"A week ago George lost two fingers and half his right hand in a bandsaw..."
"The baby is being cared for by the girl's parents"
The reason Mamie claimed why she shot herself was due to depression. How did George cruelly wrong her? What exactly happened between her and George? Did they sleep together, Mamie got pregnant, then they were forced to marry even though they didn't want to? Was Mamie the secret lover of her sister-in-law, Nellie Huntley? If Mamie and Nellie were in a secret relationship, did someone find out? Did George find out? Or was Mamie depressed because of the marriage and knew how to commit suicide and did the same way because she knew how Nellie Huntley (her sister-in-law) did it? There are so many questions and assumptions one could make!
There is a record of a Marguerite Huntley that was born in August 1894 - she was Mamie and George's daughter. On the 1900 US Census, Marguerite lived with George's mother, Julia, and George's brothers and sisters - but not George didn't not care for her.
In 1910 and 1920, Marguerite still lived with George's mother, her grandmother, Julia, and uncle Harry Huntley.
In 1930, she lived with her aunt Adeline (Huntley) Van Raalte. Marguerite worked as a stenographer for a piano company at that time. In 1931, she married James Van Blois and they lived in Fennville, Michigan.
Marguerite passed away in May 1970 in Florida.
Obviously, I don't know the reason why George didn't care for his daughter. Did he not want to care for her because it reminded him of bad memories of Mamie? Was he too prideful to take care of her? Since Marguerite lived with his family, I'd assume George and her had some type of relationship and saw each other on holidays and such. (Holland was a very small town in the early 1900's. In 1920, they lived less than a mile from each other.) Or maybe George no longer had a relationship with his family after Mamie's death?
After Mamie's death, her husband, George, remarried to Helen Astra on June 24, 1897. George was 27 years old and Helen was 20.
George continued to work at his father's furniture factory and him and Helen lived at 195 W 14th St Holland, Michigan. This home was built in 1896.
George and Helen Huntley never had children. George died in 1949 and Helen died in 1960 and both lived in Holland their entire lives.
Tragically, no one will ever really know the events leading up to the untimely death of Mamie Kuite. It's so painful to know a young woman was in so much pain, she thought there was only one way to get through it. This was 1894. Today's society is just starting to accept mental health as a real illness. I could only imagine the struggle Mamie had to deal with pretty much alone in a small conservative town. I hope this short story of her life does some justice for her. I went into that antique store that day in Whitehall, found her picture, and I never knew I would find as much I did about her. You never know what someone is else is went/going through.
What is your thought on Mamie Kuite?!
Here are other articles from the Kuite and Huntley families from the Holland City Newspaper:
