Shy?

[Cate]

At what point did she go from the shy, weird girl at Bryn Mawr to the outgoing, popular girl? I know that her grades were failing because of Tom's death and in order to participate in the school's theater program, she needed to bring up her grades, which she did. So... I guess I'm wondering if her interest in theater brought her out of her depression and made her more popular -- if she was popular anyway. Did she sort of vicariously live through acting to get over the loss of her brother?

Catherine

[smith]

Actually Katharine was never very outgoing at Bryn Mawr and she did make friends but I don't think she was every popular .

Tom died in 1921 , Katharine went to Bryn Mawr in 1924 . I am not going to speculate on whether she was depressed - I think she was vunerable and had a lot of trouble adjusting to college life . By the way Bryn Mawr didn't seem to have a very good knack of working with students back then - if you had problems they didn't seem to try and persaude you to stay . Martha Gellhorn dropped out in 1927 because she was bored - they had some pretty illustrious failures .

I can really relate to Katharine because I had serious problems as an undergraduate at university . I went one better than Katharine - they kicked me out for 6 months - I got back in and graduated .

University life can be very stressful - by all accounts Katharine had no particular committment to Bryn Mawr - she went because her parents wanted her to go and she only stayed because they persuaded her to continue . I think they did OK by her

[kathfan88]

After living in such a close knit family it must have been hard for Kath to go be around so many people. And I think that maybe she just simply prefered being home with family and friends, hence all those trips back home to Fenwick. She was vulnerable and self consious, and I think her family helped boost her confidence in a way that fans and strangers couldn't.

[katesbiggestfan]

I think that Kate was pretty shy at times. I hear alot of people say she was rude and all this other stuff because she rarely gave autographs, but who are they to say why she rarely gave them. Maybe it was the anxiety of it. I mean it is only normal for a person to be nervous and shy when random people who you never have seen a day in your life come up to you wanting your autograph. Like when you hear about how she would be with people wanting her autograph and stuff she just might not have known exactly how to handle all those people coming up to her. That is how I would be. Possibly she could have thought that if she wrote her name on the fan's paper, book, or photograph of Kate and then kind of ruined it would hide her shyness. That is personally what I think and believe. So yeah I def think Kate was shy.