Dr. Kate Yont - A Life of Service

Post by Doris McCraw aka Angela Raines

Headframe - Cripple Creek/Victor Mining area
Photo (c) Doris McCrw

In 2014 a friend from the museum in Victor, Colorado, gave me the name Kate Yont. The museum had been given some of her items but they had no record of her in the area.  To me, that was like being given the keys to the kingdom. Off I went on the journey to find this woman and what connection she had to Victor. The following is what I found on the journey of exploration.

In 1873  Katherine Eliza Geiger was born in Jackson, Michigan to John and Mary (Ver Planck) Geiger.  She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and graduated in 1896. She moved to Denver, Colorado in 1897. That same year she received her Colorado license #2514 to practice medicine. She was twenty-five at the time.  1897 also saw her marriage to Jesse Grant Yont, an 1895 graduate of the University of Michigan.

Jesse Yont, according to some records graduated with a law degree, but he also played football while in college and with two ‘professional’ teams in Denver: Bently football 1894

Around 1900 he was living in Victor. His family probably came with him. While there is no record of Kate practicing medicine in the area, there is a high probability she did in some capacity.

Jesse in a football uniform

The next time we hear of Kate is when Jesse fell about 60 feet in the Strong mine in the Cripple Creek/Victor area on June 6, 1903. The newspapers state he was scalped from the fall but did not crack his skull. There was some question about whether he would survive. He did recover but according to family stories, he was not mentally the same after. This was also the first record I found of Kate in the area.

The family returned to Denver and Kate resumed her practice. The couple separated/divorced around 1920. There were two children from the union and they both remained with Kate, however, family stories do say the son would. periodically visit his father.

While in Denver Kate was the assistant gynecologist at St. Anthony’s Hospital. She also was involved with the Flower Mission, a nucleus of the Visiting Nurses Association, worked as the resident physician at the Florence Crittenton Home, and was well-known to the Italian community for helping in their naturalization process.

She died December 7, 1943, in Denver. Colorado.

As I said, an unexpected journey and a story of an almost forgotten woman.

Until Next Time: stay safe, stay happy, and stay healthy.

Doris