Kate Austin [Biography and account of meeting her]
I spent two beautiful months, August and September, on Sam and Kate Austin’s farm, and am pleased to have made the personal acquaintance of both. Sam and Kate, in fact the whole family, the young and the old folks, as well as the numerous relatives which live around them, are people of the kind one is always delighted to meet. Straightforward and frank in words and action, they are esteemed by friends and foes.
Kate is a woman of about forty years of age, tall and plain in appearance; but her features indicate resoluteness combined with kindness. With her wide awake eyes she looks hopefully into a bright future, in which her ideas will be realized. Altho born and raised on a farm, in Iowa, and having spent her whole life on a farm, it is marvelous how this woman educated herself thru her own efforts. In conversing with her, one can hardly escape her influence and the force of her arguments. She needs not to waste time in looking for arguments, which are often satirical as well as witty. And thus, being originally the only one in the large family with this trend of mind and rebellious spirit, she finally succeeded in bringing all around her to her way of thinking. Undoubtedly she is a born Anarchist.
She explained to me that she always had a predilection for the word liberty, and people fighting for liberty, even at a time when she could not realize the full meaning of the word; and when a young girl, blooming into womanhood, she felt a dislike for the every-day machine-like talk and actions of those who persist in following ‘the old calf path,’ as she expressed it. In 1886 and 1887 she was a Freethinker; but when at that time Capital resolved to kill Anarchy by commencing in Chicago, and the reports about the great Chicago Anarchist trial spread thruout the country, even into every farm house, she saw at once her place in the ranks of those for whom liberty is no idle sound. It is another of the many cases which go to show how Capital succeeded in killing Anarchy in those days. Since that time Kate has filled her place well, which is proved by her many able articles in the FIREBRAND, FREE SOCIETY, and Lucifer.
Unfortunately, this noble woman has not enjoyed good health during the last ten months. Dr. Foote of New York, who diagnosed her case, declared her consumptive. On September 25, Sam, Kate and myself left the farm in a covered wagon. After a ride of thirty miles we reached Nevada, Mo., where we parted, I going to the east in search of work, she to the west in search of health. Sam and Kate intended to make a trip to Colorado in about thirty days, to visit Comrades William and Lizzie Holmes, and remain there during winter. The latest news, however, is sad. Kate’s condition became worse, and they were compelled to stop in a little town in the central part of Kansas.
CARL NOLD.
Free Society November 9 1902
The same issue carried a notice of Kate Austin’s death on 28 October.
https://historicalseditions.noblogs.org/files/2023/04/Free-Society_9-45_9-November-1902.pdf