The Life of Kate Chopin
Born originally as Katherine O’Flaherty, Kate Chopin came to life on February 8th, 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri to Thomas and Eliza O'Flaherty. The family she was born into was known as one of St. Louis’ wealthiest family’s because of her father’s well-known success as merchant involving the sale of boats and wholesale grocery.
In 1855 Thomas O'Flaherty died suddenly from a work-related railroad accident. Kate lacked male role models in her life after her father died. She was raised by three generations of women, including her maternal great-grandmother, Madame Victoria Verdon Charleville, who instructed Kate in music lessons, French lessons, and storytelling. Additionally, Kate attended the prestigious Sacred Heart Academy, which promoted intelligence and independent thinking: this helped Kate begin her lifelong love of reading and writing. When Kate was eleven, Madame Charleville died, and Kate's half-brother George was killed while fighting in the Civil War for the Confederate side.
At the age of nineteen Kate O’Flaherty married Oscar Chopin, the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. The union between these two individuals produced six children (five boys and two girls). Oscar was French Catholic, as was Kate. In 1882, Oscar Chopin died of malaria also known at the time as swamp fever. Kate managed her husband's business for approximately a year and then returned to live near her mother in St. Louis. A year after her return, her mother passed away.
To support herself and her family, Kate began to write. She was immediately successful and wrote short stories about people she had known in Louisiana. Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890 when Kate was forty. When The Awakening was published in 1899, the story created a scandal because of its portrayal of a strong, unconventional woman involved in an adulterous affair. It was inspired by a true story of a New Orleans woman who was infamous in the French Quarter.
His rapidly progressing disease made it impossible to continue giving lessons. In the summer of 1849 the eldest sister of the composer came from Warsaw to take care of her ill brother. On October 17, 1849, Chopin died of pulmonary tuberculosis in his Parisian flat. Though he was buried in Paris, his heart was removed from his body and was placed in an urn installed in a pillar of the Holy Cross church in Krakowskie Przedmiscie
When she was a teenager she kept a diary. A few years later she met her husband Oscar Chopin. They got married and they moved down to Louisiana from Saint Louis. They had six children together; five boys and one girl.
Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1851, into a wealthy Catholic family in St. Louis Missouri. As a little girl, her father died a few years later in 1855 and was raised at home with her other sisters and mother, strong willed and prominent women who believed in self sufficiency. Soon, on June 9, 1870, Chopin married a man named Oscar. She graduated from St. Louis convent school. In the meanwhile, Kate was soon busy by the occupations of a being a mother and wife to the prestigious business man, Oscar whom she married. Throughout this escapade of life, Kate was forced to relocate often due to her husband’s change of business. Although, it was difficult to build upon these circumstances, Kate managed a small farm and plantation farm to keep things running. Even through these circumstances, Kate pulled through only to discover that all these locals would soon be her inspirations and se...
Wyatt, Neal "Biography of Kate Chopin" English 384: Women Writers. Ed. Ann M. Woodlief Copyright: 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University. (26 Jan. 1999) http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katebio.htm
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850, Kate Chopin was an influential woman who endured many tragedies throughout her lifetime. She grew up in a bilingual and bicultural home of English and French, mostly raised by the widowed women in her family (Kate Chopin). Her father had died when she was five years old when his train crossed a collapsing bridge and all her siblings died in infancy or in their early twenties. From then till she was about sixteen years, her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother educated Chopin in French and music. She then reentered the Sacred Heart Academy and graduated top of her class (Wyatt). At age twenty, Chopin married Oscar Chopin and they moved down to New Orleans where they raised their seven children until Oscar died of malaria nearly twelve years after they were married. Chopin moved back to St. Louis with her children to live with her mother, until she died a year later, leaving Chopin alone. She died in 1904, only days after visiting the World’s Fair in St. Louis, of a cerebral hemorrhage (Kate Chopin).
Kate Chopin was born February 8, 1850 in St. Louis. She was raised by a single woman; this impacted her views in the family at an early age. She began her own family at a young age; Kate had a different method compare too many women in her time. As time progressed, she developed a bad habit of dressing inappropriately. Soon she started to publish stories about the experiences and stories of her interests such as women’s individuality and miserable
Many authors find inspiration through their past experiences, whether it is subconscious or not they incorporate a little part of their life into their stories. Katherine O’Flaherty, later Kate Chopin, grew up very differently from many girls in the eighteen hundreds. Her unusual childhood had her surrounded by three independent and educated women, which is how she grew up with such strong feminist views. Throughout her schooling and homelife, Kate was taught to live independently and think for herself. Kate Chopin uses her life’s experiences to help shape her characters and plot throughout many of her writings including “The Story of an Hour” and The Awakening.
This author was born Katherine (Kate) O’Flaherty Chopin in February of 1850 to a father of Irish descent and a Creole (French settlers of the southern United States, esp. Louisiana) mother (Guilds 293). Chopin was a bicultural mixture of strength. Due to measures beyond her control, she grows up in a life surrounded by strong willed women. These ladies were passionate women Chopin loved and respected; her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. They each added their individual spice of life to a brew of pure womanhood. Thus, seasoning a woman that would become one of the most influential, controversial female authors in American history. Kate Chopin created genuine works exposing the innermost conflicts women of the late 1800’s were experiencing. The heroines of her fictional stories were strong, yet confused, women searching for a meaning behind the spirit that penetrated their very souls.
Kate Chopin was one of the most influential nineteenth century American fiction writers. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri on either one of three dates: February 8, 1851, February 8, 1850, or July 12, 1850, depending on the source. She once said that she was born in 1851, but her baptismal certificate states February 8, 1850 as her birthday (Inge, 2). There is also an indiscretion regarding the spelling of her name. Her full name is Katherine O’Flaherty Chopin, but one source spells her first name with a ‘C’ (Katherine, 1). Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was an Irish immigrant who became a successful merchant in St. Louis. Her mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, came from a wealthy aristocratic Creole family (Inge, 2). Kate Chopin was a student at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis. Here she learned the Catholic teachings and great intellectual discipline. She graduated from this French school in 1868 (Inge, 2). On June 9th in 1870, she married Oscar Chopin. Together the couple had six children: Jean (1871), Oscar (1873), George (1874), Frederick (1876), Felix (1878), and Lelia (1879) (Inge, 3).
Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis in 1851. Her mother Eliza O’Flaherty and father Thomas O’Flaherty were Slave-owning Catholics. (Wilson, Kathleen. The Story of an Hour. Ssfs. 2. Detroit, Michigan: Gale, 1997. 263. Print.) (Wilson 263) At the age of four she had lost her father in a train wreck. She was raised by her French-Creole mother and Great-Grandma. She had begun school at the age of five at Academy of Sacred Heart. After her father died she was taught at home. Later she returned to school and graduated at the age of 17. She got married at the age of twenty years to Oscar Chopin, twenty-five years old and a son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. He was also a French catholic like Kate. Chopin went as...
Kate Chopin is an American author and short story writer. She is considered among the most vital ladies in nineteenth-century American fiction. She was born on Feb. 8, 1851, in St. Louis, Missouri, and died there on Aug. 22, 1904. In the article Rena states, “.
According to Chopin’s biographer Karasowki (1906), Frédéric François Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola, a village west of Warsaw, Poland. According to the parish baptismal record, which was discovered in 1892, it gives his birthday as 22 February 1810, but March 1st 1810 was stated by the composer and his family as his birthday, according to Chopin in a letter of January 16th 1833 (Karasowski, 1906).
Chopin, fatherless at four, was certainly a product of her Creole heritage, and was strongly influenced by her mother and her maternal grandmother. Perhaps it is because she grew up in a female dominated environment that she was not a stereotypical product of her times and so could not conform to socially acceptable themes in her writing. Chopin even went so far as to assume the managerial role of her husband's business after he died in 1883. This behavior, in addition to her fascination with scientific principles, her upbringing, and her penchant for feminist characters would seem to indicate that individuality, freedom, and joy were as important to Chopin as they are to the characters in her stories. Yet it appears to be as difficult for critics to agree on Chopin's view of her own life as it is for them to accept the heroines of her stories. Per Seyersted believes that Chopin enjoyed living alone as an independent writer, but other critics have argued that Chopin was happily married and bore little resemblance to the characters in her stories (150-164).
Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to secure and socially prominent parent, Eliza O'Flaherty, of French-Creole descent, and Thomas O'Flaherty, an Irish immigrant and successful commission merchant. Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart from 1855 until she graduated on 1868. In 1855, her father was died in a railroad accident. She lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them were widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon 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. Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her husband. She was influenced by her upbringing among these women. This showed up later in her fiction. For example, in her first short story “Wiser than a god” she characterized a strong and independent woman. This woman had an exceptional musical talent. She preferre...
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “Kate Chopin.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Sep2013. Academic Research Database. 1 Nov. 2013