DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this story, and I'm just the voice it found. Now, some names carry weight before you even finish saying them. Katherine Anne Porter is one of those names.
But here's the thing — she wasn't born Katherine Anne Porter at all. She came into this world on May 15, 1890, as Callie Russell Porter, born in Indian Creek, Brown County, Texas. Her early years were hard ones.
Her mother, Mary Alice Jones Porter, died in 1892. Her father, Harrison Boone Porter, gathered up the children and came back to his native Hays County to live with his own mother — a woman named Catherine Ann Skaggs Porter, born in 1826, gone by 1901. Young Callie grew up in Kyle, attended the public schools there, and came of age in the shadow of that grandmother whose very name would one day mean something to the whole reading world.
She married young. It didn't last. And in 1915, she left Texas behind.
She went to Chicago, and somewhere between the leaving and the arriving, Callie Russell Porter set that name down and picked up another one — her grandmother's name. Katherine Anne Porter. She became a journalist.
Then a traveler. Then something more. Her first book of short stories, Flowering Judas and Other Stories, was published in 1930.
That was just the opening hand. In 1939 came Pale Horse, Pale Rider, another collection, and her reputation as a preeminent writer of short stories was by then beyond argument. Then in 1962, the novel Ship of Fools arrived and was acclaimed.
And in 1965, The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter won the Pulitzer Prize. She did come back to Texas, in her later years, to visit her former homes. She hadn't forgotten where she came from.
And when she died on September 18, 1980, she had left instructions. Her ashes were to be interred next to her mother's grave — Mary Alice Jones Porter — in the Indian Creek Cemetery in Brown County. The same ground where it all began.
Callie Russell Porter left Texas looking for something. Katherine Anne Porter found it. And in the end, she came home.
What the marker says
(May 15, 1890 - September 18, 1980) Katherine Anne Porter, one of America's most distinguished writers of fiction, was born Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, Brown County, Texas. Her mother, Mary Alice Jones Porter, died in 1892, and her father, Harrison Boone Porter (1858-1942) returned with the children to his native Hays County to live with his mother, Catherine Ann Skaggs Porter (1826-1901). Porter spent her childhood in Kyle and attended the public schools here. Following a brief failed marriage, she left Texas in 1915. She went to Chicago and, using the name she adopted from her grandmother, became a journalist. She traveled throughout the world and began her writing career. Porter's first book of short stories, "Flowering Judas and Other Stories," was published in 1930. Considered a preeminent writer of short stories, she published another collection, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" in 1939. Her acclaimed 1962 novel "Ship of Fools" was followed by the Pulitzer prize-winning "The Collected Stores of Katherine Anne Porter" in 1965. Porter returned to Texas to visit her former homes in her later years and, according to her request, upon her death her ashes were interred next to her mother's grave in the Indian Creek Cemetery. (1990)