Katherine Tupper Marshall (1) (1882–1978)

Katherine Tupper Marshall was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky to the family of a Baptist minister. They moved to Baltimore, Maryland and then to Brooklyn, New York for his work. In 1899, Katherine and her sister Allene went to college, a rarity for American women at the time, attending the Hollins Institute in Roanoke, Virginia. Katherine also edited the campus publications and wrote poetry. In 1902, she graduated from Hollins and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Despite her father's objections, she appeared on stage in the lead role in the British play Mrs. Dane’s Defence.  In the face of continuing parental pressure to quit acting, she went to England, where she adopted the stage name Katherine Boyce (her middle name). After three months of training, she toured the British Isles with Sir Frank Benson's English Shakespearean Company. She returned to the USA and joined Richard Mansfield’s theater company in Chicago in 1907. In 1911, she married Clifton Stevenson Brown, a lawyer in Baltimore, with whom she had three children. After his death in 1928, she moved to live with a family friend in Columbus, Georgia. There she met George C. Marshall, then a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. They married in 1930, and went to his posting at Fort Benning, Georgia. Her social obligations increased with the couple's move to Washington, D.C. in 1938. As the wife of a general, Katherine hosted a variety of social events and played an important part in supporting her husband's career. Gen. Marshall’s promotion to Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army in 1939 advanced Katherine’s position as well, making her "First Lady of the Army." She served on the boards of several humanitarian organizations, including the American Red Cross, Army Emergency Relief, and the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines Club in New York City. During World War II, she made numerous public appearances and spoke at war bond drives. After the war, she accompanied her husband on his mission as President Truman's special envoy to China. While there, she took long tours of the countryside and collected 352 different varieties of mountain lilies, which she planted on the embassy grounds. In 1946, she published a memoir called Together: Annals of an Army Wife. Following Gen. Marshall's death in 1959, Katherine retired to Tryon, North Carolina.