Biography
of Kate Chopin
by Neal Wyatt
Kate
Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to Eliza and
Thomas O'Flaherty. She was the third of five children, but her sisters died in
infancy and her brothers (from her father's first marriage) in their early
twenties. She was the only child to live past the age of twenty-five.
In
1855, at five and a half, she was sent to The Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic
boarding school in St. Louis. Her father was killed two months later when a
train on which he was riding crossed a bridge that collapsed. For the next two
years she lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother,
all of them widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville oversaw
her education and taught her French, music, and the gossip on St. Louis women
of the past. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single
women. They were also savvy and came from a long line of ground breaking women
Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal
separation from her husband, after which she raised her five children and ran a
shipping business on the Mississippi. Until Kate was sixteen, no married
couples lived in her home, although it was full of brothers, uncles, cousins,
and borders.
She
returned to the Sacred Heart Academy, where the nuns were known for their
intelligence, and was top of her class. She won medals, was elected into the
elite Children of Mary Society, and delivered the commencement address. After
graduation she was a popular, if cynical, debutante. She wrote in her diary
advice on flirting, "just keep asking 'What do you think?'" (Toth,
62).
She
grew up during the Civil War and this caused her to be separated from the one
friend she had made at the Sacred Heart Academy, Kitty Garesche. Her family
were slave holders and supported the South. St. Louis was a pro-North city, and
the Gareshe's were forced to move. After the war, Kitty returned and she and
Chopin were friends until Kitty entered Sacred Heart as a nun. There is no
other evidence that Chopin had any other close female friendships.
