Kate Scott Turner

Kate Scott Turner
Turner (right) in 1859
Born
Catherine Mary Scott

(1831-03-12)March 12, 1831
Cooperstown, New York, U.S.
Died1917(1917-00-00) (aged 85–86)
England
Spouses
Campbell Ladd Turner
​
​
(m. 1855; d. 1857)​
John Anthon
​
(m. 1866)​
In September 2012, the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections unveiled this daguerreotype, proposing it to be Dickinson and her friend Kate Scott Turner (ca. 1859); it has not been authenticated.

Catherine Mary Scott Turner (March 12, 1831 – 1917) was an American poet and a friend of poet Emily Dickinson.[1] She was also known as Kate Anthon.

Overview

Catherine Mary ("Kate") Scott was the daughter of Henry Scott of Cooperstown, New York.[2] She attended the Utica Female Seminary, where in 1848 she met Susan Gilbert, who married Emily Dickinson's brother Austin Dickinson.[3] The women remained friends until Susan's death[4] in 1913.[5]

In 1855, she married Campbell Ladd Turner, who died in 1857 of tuberculosis.[2][4] Turner was acquainted with Emily Dickinson through Susan, and they remained so until the mid-1860s.[3] Turner married for a second time in 1866 to John Hone Anthon, who died eight years later. She died in 1917 in England, having lived most of her life outside of the United States.[2]

Emily Dickinson

She met Emily Dickinson in 1859.[2] From that time until about 1862, Dickinson sent her four poems.[3] One poem was sent with a pair of garters that Dickinson had knitted for her:

When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side,
When Katie runs unwearied they follow on the road,
When Katie kneels, their loving hands still clasp her pious knee —
Ah! Katie! Smile at Fortune, with two so knit to thee!

— Emily Dickinson[3]

References

  1. ^ Rebecca Patterson (1951). The Riddle of Emily Dickinson. Houghton Mifflin.
  2. ^ a b c d 'The World Is Not Acquainted With Us': A New Dickinson Daguerreotype?" Amherst College Archives and Special Collections Website. September 6, 2012.
  3. ^ a b c d Emily Dickinson (June 1998). The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University Press. p. 1189. ISBN 978-0-674-67601-5.
  4. ^ a b Wathira Nganga (September 5, 2012). "Amherst College claims to have rare photograph of Emily Dickinson". Amherst University. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  5. ^ "Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson (1830–1913), sister-in-law". Emily Dickinson Museum. Retrieved July 21, 2017.

Further reading