Katharine Ball Ripley
Katharine “Kattie” Ball Ripley, the daughter of the legendary newspaperman William Watts Ball and Fay Witte, was born in Charleston on May 20, 1898. She attended Chatham Episcopal Institute (Virginia), where in 1914 she saw her work published in the school’s student literary journal. She met her husband, Clem, when he was stationed as an army officer during World War I at Camp Jackson, near Columbia. They were married in 1919. Their son, William Y. “Warren” Ripley, was born in 1921.
In the early 1920s, Clem invested in a hundred acres in the sandhills of North Carolina, where for seven years he and Kattie tried their hands at peach farming (the subject of her first book, Sand in My Shoes, 1931). In 1932, the Atlantic Monthly published three of Kattie’s stories. Her second book, Sand Dollars (1933), was a memoir written out of the experience of the stock market crash. In 1936, Doubleday Doran published her novel of modern Charleston Manners, Crowded House.
Katharine Ball Ripley died on July 24, 1955. She is buried in Magnolia Cemetery with her husband. In 1990, Warren Ripley published a paperback selection of his parents’ short fiction entitled Cities of Fear and Other Adventure Stories. Five years later, Down Home Press published a paperback edition of Kattie’s first nonfiction book, Sand in My Shoes, as one in its Carolina Classics series. Ripley was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 1998.
In the early 1920s, Clem invested in a hundred acres in the sandhills of North Carolina, where for seven years he and Kattie tried their hands at peach farming (the subject of her first book, Sand in My Shoes, 1931). In 1932, the Atlantic Monthly published three of Kattie’s stories. Her second book, Sand Dollars (1933), was a memoir written out of the experience of the stock market crash. In 1936, Doubleday Doran published her novel of modern Charleston Manners, Crowded House.
Katharine Ball Ripley died on July 24, 1955. She is buried in Magnolia Cemetery with her husband. In 1990, Warren Ripley published a paperback selection of his parents’ short fiction entitled Cities of Fear and Other Adventure Stories. Five years later, Down Home Press published a paperback edition of Kattie’s first nonfiction book, Sand in My Shoes, as one in its Carolina Classics series. Ripley was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 1998.
