Kate E. Malone
“Katie Mallard”
Real-life model in Annie Fellows
Johnston's "Little Colonel" series
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The only photo we have of
Katie Mallard is from an official Little Colonel postcard issued by
L.C. Page & Co.
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We first meet Katie Mallard in “The
Little Colonel at Boarding School,” published in 1903. Katie is one of
the gaggle of girls -- including
Betty and the Walton sisters,
Allison,
Kitty and
Elise -- who were chums with
the Little Colonel.
In
Chapter IV, we learn that Katie “crochets the cunningest little
doll-caps you ever saw.” In
Chapter VI, we learn that Katie, like the Walton girls, is a day pupil
at
Lloydsboro Seminary and therefore, a Lloydsboro Valley resident. In
Chapter IX, we learn that she is Kitty Walton’s best friend.
Katie receives brief mentions in other Little Colonel stories, too,
including “The
Little Colonel’s Christmas Vacation,” “The
Little Colonel Maid of Honor,” and “The
Little Colonel’s Knight Comes Riding.” However, we learn little else
about her except that the Mallards attend the same
little stone church as the
Little Colonel and the
Moores
and that the Mallard family plays host to several barn dances.
Though Annie Fellows Johnston never provides much descriptive or
background material on Katie Mallard, we are certain that her character was
based on a real Pewee Valley girl named Kate E. Malone. Why are we so sure?
Because Annie Fellows Johnston herself provided Katie Mallard’s real life
identity on
an official Little Colonel series postcard .
Census data shows that there was a Malone family renting dwelling no. 54
in 1900. Eugene Malone, who worked in real estate, and his wife, Mary Ella,
had four children at the time: Hale C., born in 1886; Kate E., born in 1892;
Alice, born in 1897; and Laura F., born in 1899. Also living with the
Malones were two servants, Gabe Johnson and Betty Fible. Their neighbors
included the Kayes
(dwelling no. 47); the Davis family (dwelling no. 48); the O’Neals at
Old Pine Tower
(dwelling no. 49); the William Alexander Smiths (dwelling no. 50); the
Fultons (dwelling no. 51); and Mary Jackson (dwelling no. 52). We know that
the Kayes lived on a farm on the western edge of Pewee Valley off what is
now LaGrange Road/Highway 146. Old Pine Tower and the second William
Alexander Smith house were located along Railroad Avenue, now Mt. Mercy,
west of Central Avenue.
Oldham County marriage records show that Eugene B. Malone married Mary
Ella Boggs on November 7, 1894 (this date, however, looks as if it should be
1884, based on the ages of the Malones' children.) Their second
child, Kate E. Malone, was about a year younger than real-life
Little Colonel Hattie Cochran and may quite possibly have been one of
her playmates. Mary Ella, or "Minnie Mo" as she was known to friends and
neighbors, also made a few cameo appearances in the "Little Colonel" tales
as Katie's mother, Mrs. Mallard.
In April 1910, the Malone family was listed in the U.S. Census in
Gallatin, Tennessee with Eugene’s mother. It’s possible the family was just
visiting their Tennessee relations, since both Eugene and Mary Ella were
Tennessee natives. By the 1920 U.S. Census, the Malones had returned to
Pewee Valley and were renting a place on Central Avenue, near
Edgewood, the home of the Craigs. Of their
four children – Hale, Kate, Alice and Laura – only Laura, at age 22, was
still living with them and her occupation was listed as L&N railroad clerk.
By the 1930 census, Laura was living at The
Gables with her parents, but had obviously married and had two children:
fraternal twins Laura and Herbert McCauley/McCawley (shown in the census as
McConley), who were five years old. Pewee Valley Town Historian Virginia
Herdt Chaudoin and long-time Pewee resident Iva Barbee Morse both remember
those twins, but neither is sure of the spelling of their last name.
Kate Malone appears to have married very young. The 1920 census shows a
Kate Cobb, born July 24, 1892, living in Graves County, Kentucky. When she
married Cecil Cobb on April 21, 1909, she was only 16 and the groom
20. Oddly, her marriage was recorded in Graves County, rather than in Oldham
County, where she was from. Cecil Cobb was a farmer and by 1930, the couple
had three children, Malone, born 1911; Maurine, born 1913; and Maurice, born
1925. That their oldest boy was named Malone strengthens the
possibility that Kate Cobb was indeed the model for Katie Mallard in the
"Little Colonel" tales. It was fairly commonplace for children to receive
family surnames as first names at the turn of the 20th century. Kate Cobb
died in January, 1967, according to Social Security death records.
Alice Malone was friends with Cary Hoge, daughter of the
Rev. Peyton Harrison Hoge,
who became pastor of the Pewee
Valley Presbyterian Church beginning in 1907. The two girls raised money
for the Fresh Air Camp by putting on a piano recital:
(from Cary Hoge Mead’s self-published
biography, “Sunshine and Shadow,” pgs. 71-73)
"A
friend of mine in Pewee, Alice Malone, became deeply interested in the
Fresh Air Home, a sort of summer camp where children from the city slums
could come for two or three weeks of life in the country, with good food
and out-of-door play, some care and love. We decided to give a "benefit."
We would give a piano recital at our house, Virginia (Cary's sister
Virginia Hoge San) would sing a couple of solos after we had each played
three pieces, then we would each play two more, and wind up with Liszt's
Second Rhapsody as a duet. people would make an offering, and Mama would
have refreshments. How we did practice! We would do our regular two
or three hours a day for our lesson, and then have a joint session at our
house and work on the program pieces which were to include Bach's Two and
Three-part Inventions, some Chopin, Beethoven, Godard, Mendelssohn,
Debussy, etc. The whole community came and were so generous that we had
nearly $60.00 to contribute. I think Mama's luscious ice cream and cake
were probably more enjoyable than our playing, but they would have come
anyway to encourage us in such an earnest philanthropic effort.
By the 1920 census, Alice was married to Charles M. Osborn, son of
Charlotta Matthews Osborn
Kate Matthews’ sister, and was living in Cambridge Ward 10, Middlesex,
Massachusetts. Kate Matthews immortalized
Miss Alice Malone as a bride in the photo below:
Miss Alice Malone posing as a bride, most likely
in
Mary G. Johnston’s garden at The Beeches
Kate Matthews Collection, Photographic Archives, Ekstrom Library, University
of Louisville
Eugene B. and Mary E. Malone are buried in
Cave Hill
Cemetery, Section O, Lot 78, graves 6 and 5 respectively. Eugene died in
1931 and Mary Ella in 1947. Buried with them is Mrs. Laura Malone Wedekemper
in grave 8 – presumably Laura Malone McCauley/McCawley, who must have
remarried after being widowed. She died in 1991.
Page by
Donna Russell
Additional note:
"Katie Mallard" is one of our best examples of why it is not possible to
trust early newspaper articles about the “Little Colonel” stories, even when
those stories quote many of the other character models for the books, such
as Mary G Johnston or even the Little Colonel, Hattie Cochran, when it comes
to the subject of who's real and who's fictional. Even Annie Fellows
Johnston could be elusive on the subject in her "official" writings,
including her autobiography. However, in this case, because of a rare
piece of ephemera where Annie writes in her own hand the identity of Katie
Mallard, we had proof of the character's "realness" and our only clue to
start...a name. By the newspaper accounts and other printed and
(auto)biographical sources, Katie Mallard should have just been another on a
list of many fictional characters. That list is growing shorter all
the time.
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The People & Characters:
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Camelback Mountain &
Hole-in-Rock (Arizona),
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The Gate of the Giant Scissors (France)
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