Warren, PA
Warren was a lumber town that later turned to oil refining (there are more than one city in the state named Warren, I have not identified which one they moved to. I’m assuming the Warren that is the county seat of Warren County.) Kathleen most likily attended school at St. Joseph School. The school encompassed all of Warren County and children from St. Joseph, Holy Redeemer (Warren), St. Anthony (Sheffield) St. Thomas & St. John (Tidioute) and St. Luke (Youngsville) could attend. "As per parish borders St. Joseph covered most of the north, south and west side of Warren Holy Redeemer covered the east side and was a much smaller parish." (Thanks to Lynnette Hinton, Parish Secretary, for this information.)
The relocation to lasted about a year, and then they were on the move again, this time for Tampa, Florida.
Tampa
Of all the places that her family would move, Tampa was the place that felt most like home; she stayed there longer than anywhere else until her move to
| First Communion portrait from Jeff Codori Collection. |
California, stayed in the Holy Names School the longest, and grew up there. No doubt her wish to be in the motion pictures resolved itself from a dream into a goal, a thing achievable, just like all the other actresses she read about in the movie magazines who had been given a chance on the screen and rocketed to stardom. With tropical weather and warm waters it would have been a fun place to grow up: no long, dreary days spend snowed-in: lots of space to run and play. They were a few blocks from Tampa Bay itself, a quick run south on Magnolia Street
past the fire station on the corner at the intersection of Magnolia and Platt, kicking up clouds of dirt behind them, and then off the end of the pier and into the water.
On May 28, 1911, at the age of 11, Kathleen received her First Communion at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tampa, possibly at the same time as her brother. Both she and Cleeve posed side-by-side for a studio photographer, both in fine white clothes: Kathleen serious, staring straight into the photographer's lens, perhaps rehearsing her most serious expression in advance of the day when she would pose before a motion picture camera. Cleeve seems to suppress a smile, his attention off slightly to the side maybe watching the photographer at work. Perhaps mischief lay ahead: both kids had a sense of humor and both played off each other, no doubt co-conspirators in all sorts of pranks.
Colleen was enrolled in Convent of the Holy Names School in Tampa. Ledger books in the school’s archives list payment for Kathleen, classes as well as music lessons. Colleen wrote that her brother Cleeve had attended the same school for a time (this report from a newspaper clip | Convent of the Holy Names photograph from the Hampton Dunn Collection, University of South Florida Special Collections, USF Library, Tampa, FL. |
ping, though the claim is unverified by records); the ledgers only indicate a payent by Charles Morrison in the form of a check for Kathleen , though photographs from the time show groups with both boys and girls, so it is possible that he was indeed a student there for a time. The clipping claims Cleeve was later placed in St. Michael’s College in Toronto, though there is no record of his attendence. Theirs was a tight-knit family.
Chicago
During the summers Kathleen would spend time with her Uncle Walter and Aunt Lib (Agnes Morrison's sister Elizabeth, who changed her name to Liberty, a story recounted by Colleen in "Silent Star.") They lived iat 4161 Sheridan (according to the 1910 Federal Census: Walter Howey 27 editor/ newspaper, Elizabeth, 25). During the years Kathleen would stay with them, they would move several times. The 1912 Chicago Blue Book of selected names has them living at 4942 Sheridan Road. From either of theses addresses, the Northwestern L would have run right by their house at grade.
During those years Chicago was the center of the motion picture industry. Film production had only just begun it's westward migration, owing to the popularity of westerns and the limitations place on local productions by the extremes of Chicago weather patterns, but for the most part the studios and money were still in the east. At that time there was still a good deal of outdoor film productin in and around Chicago, and a visitor like Kathleen might easily have seen the witnesses any number of productions in the vicinity of her aunt and uncle's home. The Essanay Studios were among the biggest film companies of the day. Located at 1333 – 1345 W. Argyle, the studio was less than a mile and a half from either of Walt and Lib's Sheridan Street addresses. The nearest streetcar stop was about two blocks away from the Northwestern L.
