Kate Choplin

http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/Chopin.htm

Catherine (Kate) O'Flaherty was born on Feburary the 8th, 1950 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the second child of Thomas O'flaherty of Ireland and her mother, Eliza Faris of St. Louis. She grew up speaking french and english because her mother side is french. At a young age she there was a lot of influence of the french cultures and literature. Of the things Kate wrote about in her adult life mostly came from her well nutured young life. She attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart for 10 years and then one year at the Academy of Visitation. Growing up she was constantly mentored by her mother, grandmother, great grandmother and the Sacred Heart nuns. With all the mentoring of the women in her life she formed great bonds with her family and she had also made a friend who had been there with Kate throughout her entire life, Kitty Garasche. Kates life was definitely not perfect with all the nurturing and mentoring and her family bonds, she did grow up with the trauma in deaths with the closest people in her life. The year she started attending the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart her father died in 1855 her father died when he was on a train and as the train crossed over a bridge it had collapsed. Then in 1863 her "beloved French-speaking great grandmother died". She spent the civil war where she lived, in St. Louis, where people had supported the Union and and the Confederacy. Her family had also kept slaves in their home. Later, Kate's half brother enlisted in the confederate army and was captured by Union forces and then shortly after died of typhoid fever. For basically three years Kate had kept almost like a diary that she called her "commonplace book". Along with it being kind of like a diary she kept passages of essays, poems, and other writings that she enjoyed. Between the 3 years that she had her "commonplace book" she wrote a sketch called, "Emancipation: A Fable Life". At around the age of nineteen she met Oscar Choplin from Natchitoches Parish, Louisianna. Oscar's "French father had taken" their family to Europe during the Civil War. In 1870 they married. Later on in Kate's life she wrote two books and close to about two hundred short stories in the 1890's. The short stories she had wrote were published by very well know magizines.  Some of her stories had also been published in two collections, Bayou Folk, and A Night in Acadie. Most of everything she has writen has recieved good reviews across the country. After her death in 1904 her writings were forgotten but around 1920 her short stories came back in anthologies, and then again people began reading her literature. Then around the 1950's scholar's took notice to how insightful and moving her writings are. All in all, Kate Choplin was and still continues to be a great author throughout her time and ours.


http://www.katechopin.org/biography.shtml