Victorian Mourning / For Victorians, death was a normal part of life. Queen Victoria made mourning fashionable and forever connected the Victorian age with elaborate grieving. Catherine Gibson was in mourning for the majority of her life, widowed 5 years after her marriage and later losing her eldest son while he was still young. Mourning was fiercely regulated by society and would last for extended periods of time. Mourning clothes were the first to be ready-made, and were usually discarded at the end of grieving.