Wichita Falls City Park Adjacent to Riverside Cemetery's Crying Bride
1810 5th St, Wichita Falls, TX 76301
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free; public park and cemetery.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved park paths; cemetery accessed via 5th Street, paved walkways near notable graves
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1910 · Wichita Falls History · Kemp Family Legacy · Victorian Funerary Art · Early 20th Century Public Health
Flora Charlotte Kemp was twenty years old when she died in 1910. She was in Detroit, Michigan, traveling with her family, when typhoid fever took her. The year 1910 saw a significant typhoid outbreak in multiple American cities, and Detroit's water and sewage infrastructure — still developing in the pre-public health era — contributed to elevated case counts.
Her father, Joseph Alexander Kemp, was one of Wichita Falls's most prominent citizens. He had arrived in the region as a young man and built a commercial empire that included banking, utilities, and land development. The Kell House — a neoclassical mansion built in 1909 on Kemp Boulevard — was the family's social center and remains one of Wichita Falls's most recognized historic properties. Flora's death came just a year after the house was completed.
Flora was brought home to Wichita Falls and buried in Riverside Cemetery, the city's oldest burial ground, situated on a bluff above the south bank of the Wichita River at the edge of what is now Lucy Park. The monument the family placed at her grave depicts a young girl in period dress descending a flight of stairs. The inscription reads 'Little Sister.'
Lucy Park itself is a 178-acre municipal park named after Lucy O. Saunders, a prominent female oil industry figure. The park was developed beginning in the 1960s along the Wichita River, incorporating the land adjacent to Riverside Cemetery. A man-made waterfall was installed in 1987 to replace the original waterfall on the Wichita River, which had been destroyed by an 1886 flood.
Riverside Cemetery is maintained by the City of Wichita Falls and contains graves of the city's founding-era figures alongside the Kemp family plot.
Sources
Two versions of Flora Kemp's story circulate in Wichita Falls, and only one is historically accurate.
The legend says she tripped on the elegant curved staircase of the Kell House on her wedding day, broke her neck, and died. The fact is that Flora died of typhoid in Detroit in 1910, a year before a wedding could have been planned. She was not engaged. The mix-up likely originated in the statue's imagery — a young girl descending stairs — and the proximity of the Kell House to the Kemp family's history.
The statue's nickname, 'the Crying Bride,' comes from reports of a single tear tracing down its marble cheek at night. Wichita Falls photographer Jim Livingston has documented the statue since the 1980s; his work has been exhibited at the Kemp Center for the Arts. The accounts of tears visible on the marble have persisted across decades and multiple independent observers, including the person who submitted the original Shadowlands report for this location, who states they saw it once and have returned without seeing it again.
Visitor traditions at the grave have accumulated over time. Coins, keys, lighters, and small personal items are left regularly at the base of the statue. This practice has no formal origin; it appears to have developed organically from visitors who felt some kind of connection with the young woman who died so far from home.
The Shadowlands report for this location contains an error that was later corrected in a 2008 update: the original submission stated Flora died 'from a fever she caught in England' after purchasing items for her home following marriage. The updated record corrects this to Detroit, Michigan, typhoid fever, 1910, never married.
Notable Entities
Riverside Cemetery — the oldest cemetery in Wichita Falls, situated on a bluff along the Wichita River adjacent to Lucy Park — contains the marble grave marker of Flora Kemp, known locally as the 'Little Sister' statue. The statue depicts a young girl on a staircase. Visitors leave coins and small items at the base of the monument.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a 62-acre cemetery at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, California, founded in 1899 as Hollywood Cemetery on a 100-acre tract of former farmland. Paramount Pictures' studios occupy 40 acres of the original cemetery property. The cemetery was renamed Hollywood Memorial Park in 1939 and Hollywood Forever in 1998 after a 1990s bankruptcy and revival. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Blooming Grove, TX
Lone Oak Cemetery is a small rural burial ground located approximately two miles off a dirt road outside Blooming Grove in Navarro County, Texas. The cemetery serves the rural community and is accessible to the public. No documented construction date or historical records for the cemetery were found in available sources.
Rensselaer, IN
Memory Gardens of Rensselaer was chartered in 1961 as a not-for-profit cemetery corporation in Newton Township, Jasper County, Indiana. It is managed with two trust funds for perpetual care and features a Christ Resurrection Columbarium imported from Carrara, Italy.