| Birth: | Feb. 10, 1844
Traphill
Wilkes County
North Carolina, USA | | Death: | 1871
Surry County
North Carolina, USA | 
Katherine "Kate" Marcellus Bunker was the first baby born February 10, 1844 to Eng and Sarah Yates Bunker in Traphill, Wilkes County, NC.
She was named after Miss Catherine Bunker of New York, an early friend of the twins.
In 1849, their old friend Dr. Edmund H. Doty approached the twins with an offer to exhibit them under his management. Doty wanted to show the twins with two of their daughters - Katherine and Josephine (Chang's daughter) for eight months.
On another excursion in 1853, a lenghty one - twelve months, Eng again took Katherine, his oldest child and Chang took his oldest son Christopher. In all, the twins visited 130 towns and cities in the Northeastern States and Canada.
In 1868, Eng's oldest daughter, Kate M. Bunker, brilliant young lady with a well cultivated mind, had been for some time growing more and more delicate in health and it was greatly feared by her family and acquaintances that she was falling prey to a fatal malady.
It was hoped that perhaps a voyage across the salt sea might prove beneficial or that some prescription of some learned and eminent physicians of London or Edinburg might ve advantageous. She was anxious to go. Kate was twenty-four and Chang's daughter, Nancy Adelaide "Nannie", age twenty-one, went on this trip, leaving December 5, 1868. Both daughters kept written records of their trip. Many passengers became sick on the trip - fourteen days at sea.
Kate was seen by physicians on the staff of the Edinburgh Medical Center. Her diagnosis was pneumonary consumption, far advanced.
The twins arranged to meet with Sir James Young Simpson, the renowned Scottish physician who was professor of medicine at Edinburgh University, to consult his opinion as regarding the propriety of a surgical operation to separate them. The physician apparently could do nothing to improve Kate's state of health. Neither did they think the Siamese Twins could successfully be separated.
By August 5, 1869, they were safely back in Mount Airy, NC.
Katherine "Kate" Marcellus Bunker died in 1871 at age 27 of consumption, what we know today as TB.
This bio was copied from the book, "The Connected Bunkers" by Jessie Bunker Bryant with the author's permission.
Family links:
Parents:
Eng Bunker (1811 - 1874)
Sara A Yates Bunker (1822 - 1892)
| | | Burial:
White Plains Baptist Cemetery
White Plains
Surry County
North Carolina, USA |
Created by: bncheek
Record added: Aug 13, 2010
Find A Grave Memorial# 57026106 |
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Cemetery Photo
Added by:
K. Ned Beasley
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