Remembrances of Sue Cooper, daughter of Ruth McGovern Moss:

Dr. James would come out in his bathrobe and tell the young men to leave because
they were too loud. These were the young men dating  Ruth and Kitty at the time.

Dr. James was a horse and buggy doctor.  People would come to the house at night
and he would go with them.  Kate would go on doctors visits with Dr. James. She 
was something like a midwife and nurse. Dr. James was also a dentist. Sometimes 
removing teeth. At one time he had a office in his home.

Toward the end of Dr. James' life he was like a invalid. He had very bad asthma. 
Ruth would come home after church and relate to her father the sermon she had 
just heard. Ruth said he died of bronchitus. Ruth would tell her father she 
loved him more than she did her mother. Of course, he always straightened her 
out about Miss Kate (as he called her) whom he adored. He always told Ruth 
that Miss Kate was above reproach.

One of the greatest thoughts Ruth remembered her dad telling her was 
"Christianity is a way to live and a way to die".

Dr. James McGovern, Jr. (Known as Jim) was killed from a fall from a horse. 
He did not die instantly, but died soon after.  He and another man collided with 
their two horses.  The other man was drunk at the time and broke his arm from 
the fall. Jim set the man's arm after the fall.  Jim's head fell on a piece 
of cement from the fall and he later died. Jim was something of a hero to 
the family.

Kate and Dr. James were very distraught with the death of their son Jim.  They 
both wept often.  Soon after Jim's death Joe came home and told his parents 
that he had decided to become a doctor, following in his brother's footsteps.

It was believed that Minnie had epilepsy. 

James may have been a indenture servant when he first came to MS. Not
sure if Bernard was indentured, but felt sure that James was.  Also, the 
man James worked for was alcoholic and may have treated him bad.  

James first got his interest in medicine by reading medical books owned
by the person James worked for in MS.

James made this statement after hearing the Emancipation Proclmation read: "It wasn't
God's will for any man to be a slave."

James and Kate raised several black children as well as their own 
children.  Most likely these were children of their workers that felt
they could not raise the children. One of the black children was named
Yantzey.

Possibly one of the brothers of James and Bernard fell over board on their 
trip to America. I explained to Sue that the ship records I found do not show
any McGovern's dieing on their trip to NYC, but it is possible that someone may
have died on the trip from Ireland to Liverpool.