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~ Katherine O'Flaherty was born in St. Louis,
Missouri.
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Her father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had immigrated from Ireland.
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Her mother, Eliza
Faris, was a well-connected member of the French community in St. Louis.
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Kate was the third of five children, but she was the only child to live past the age of twenty-five.
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When Kate was four, her father died.
He was aboard the first train on the Pacific Railroad when it crossed over the Gasconade Bridge and collapsed.
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Kate became an avid reader of fairy tales,
poetry and religious allegories.
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Kate's great-grandmother and husband had the first legal separation ever granted in St. Louis.
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In 1863, Kate lost her dear great-grandmother and her half brother, a Confederate soldier who died of swamp fever as a prisoner of war.
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Kate dropped out of regular schooling for a while and became even further engrossed in her world of books.
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In 1868, she graduated from Sacred Heart Academy, achieving the distinction of
a master storyteller.
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After marrying cotton broker Oscar Chopin, Kate’s life appeared to brighten.
They honeymooned in Germany,
Switzerland and France.
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The happy couple
settled in New Orleans. She gave birth to five sons and one daughter and still remained active in the city social life.
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Kate, independent as
her great-grandmother, shocked her community by walking around
the city unaccompanied.
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In 1882 Oscar contracted swamp fever and died. He left Kate with $12,000 in debt.
She attempted to work to support her six children, but with little success.
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Eventually she took her kids back to St. Louis and moved in with her wealthy mother. No longer concerned with money, she began reading again.
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The next year, Kate's mother died, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. Her doctor suggested she write as a way to calm herself. She took his advice.
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By the late 1880s, Kate was writing short stories,
articles and translations. They were published in several periodicals, including
The Saint Louis Dispatch.
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She became known as a regional color writer, but her literary qualities were overlooked until the publication of her scandalous novel
The Awakening in 1899.
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The story of a woman exploring her sexuality was just too shocking for the time,
and it pushed Chopin into literary oblivion.
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Deeply discouraged but not defeated, Kate returned mainly to short story writing.
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In 1900 she wrote
The Gentleman from New Orleans, and that same year was listed in the first edition of
Marquis Who's Who.
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She didn't make much money from her writings and depended on investments to sustain her.
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In August 20, 1904, Kate collapsed of a brain hemorrhage while visiting the St. Louis World's Fair. She died two days later at the age of
fifty-three.
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With the bitter storm surrounding The Awakening, her editors decided to suspend publication of her third collection of
stories.
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A Vocation and a Voice wasn't published until 1991, eighty-seven years after her death.
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