[2] The family moved as Reverend Tupper was called from Harrodsburg to Baltimore, Maryland, to Brooklyn, New York, where he took up a pastorate at Calvary Baptist Church in Gramercy Park.

Her classmates and professors noticed as well, stating in her 1967 Hollins Medal citation that Katherine “[e]dited almost every publication at Hollins she did not manage, acted in every play she did not direct, was vice president of everything in which she was not president and had time left over to write poetry, be on the tennis team, and even to play the banjo.”[3] In 1902, Katherine graduated with an Eclectic Degree consisting of diplomas in elocution, moral science, history and English courses.

[2]: 27  As a result of her performance, she received an award from the academy and an offer from Broadway matinee idol, James K. Hackett, to work as his lead actress.

Accompanied by her sister Allene, and with a diploma and letter of introduction from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Katherine secured an interview with the renowned English actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, owner and manager of Her Majesty's Theatre in London.

[2]: 31 With all “the nerve” and “the gall” she could muster, Katherine auditioned for Sir Frank Benson, a leading Shakespearean actor and producer.

[5] Diagnosed with “tuberculosis of the kidney,” Katherine was forced to end her career on stage in England and return to the United States.

Every thought, every ambition, every hope had vanished.”[4] After a year of recuperation in the U.S., Katherine was invited to join Richard Mansfield's theatre company in Chicago in 1907.

[2]: 37 During another convalescence in the Adirondack Mountains, a man named Clifton Stevenson Brown renewed the proposal of marriage he had made while Katherine was a student.

[2]: 39  However reluctantly she may have turned from her career to marriage, motherhood “made it all different.”[2]: 39 Katherine found going from actress to wife and homemaker “rather strange.” She often had trouble determining which characteristics belonged to which role.

On June 4, 1928, she phoned Clifton's office inside the Calvert Building to tell him about an offer she had received on her cottage at Fire Island, New York.

“[He] never lost a case in the Court of Appeals,” Katherine recalled, “never a one.”[4] Earlier that year, he had agreed to represent Louis Berman in settling the estate of the client's recently deceased father.

She recalls observing the 48-year-old lieutenant colonel in the room as a “very interesting officer” with “sandy hair and deep-set eyes” making himself comfortable in front of the fireplace.

[1]: 2 Within two years, Katherine's acquaintance with George Marshall developed into a deep and mutual affection, topped off with his proposal of marriage.

[7] The humble, quiet beginnings of their relationship contrasted with the fanfare of their wedding, caused primarily by the presence of Marshall's best man, General of the Armies John J.

[7] Although it was Pershing who attracted the attention, the public eye fixed its gaze on the new Mrs. Marshall that day as an object of curiosity and admiration.

[2]: 50  Dinner parties, teas and ceremonies became regular procedures for Katherine as she worked to support her husband's efforts in training a small, disheveled American army unprepared for the upcoming war.

As the wife of a general, Katherine attended and hosted a variety of social events that required her to conform to the same protocol and etiquette.

Katherine became a member of boards for several humanitarian organizations, including the American Red Cross, Army Emergency Relief and the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines Club in New York City.

On May 31, 1944, General Marshall received an urgent message: Allen, Katherine's youngest child, had been killed in action in Anzio, Italy.

In their frequent walks before dinner, she would act as his sounding board, allowing him to sort out his problems in the comforting presence of an attentive listener.

[11] Katherine later said that “they kept taking my George away from me” despite her best efforts to alleviate the demands of public service that had claimed her husband's life for so many years.

[13] Following her husband's death in 1959, Katherine found that Dodona Manor held too many memories for her to remain there, and so she retired to a residential hotel in Tryon, North Carolina.

"[15] In 1953, the George C. Marshall Foundation began constructing a research library on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute.