Is this Etta Place? - Her Family Thinks So
In the Mount Calvary Cemetery in Salt Lake City there is a headstone that reads:
SOPHIA MARIE DECORIA
AKA SYLVIA DOUGHLAS
BELIEVED TO BE: ETTA PLACE
OCTOBER 28, 1873 LANDER CITY WY
NOVEMBER 15 1908 MILFORD UT
So, is she? or isn't she? At first glance, the dates and places add up. Etta was supposed to have been born about 1873. It is possible that she had died by 1909 as nothing is known about her after her return to the United States ca. 1906 - 1907. Both Lander, Wyoming and Milford Utah are places associated with Butch Cassidy. Butch spent a lot of time in and around Lander in the early 1890s before his arrest and imprisonment. Milford, Butch as a youth worked just outside of Milford Utah in the late 1870s.
As further proof, photos of both Sophia and Etta are similar. Both show beautiful young women wearing fashionable gowns with flawless skin.
In addition, Sophia's family claims that the broach/watch that Etta Place was wearing in the famous DeYoung photo (see above) is the same one that the family has. The family tale is that it was purchased for her in New York City.
So was Sophia DeCory/DeCoria actually Etta Place?
Further research has shown that though this conclusion is tempting, it is probably false.
