Katherine Anne Porter to American frontiersman Daniel Boone and the writer O. Henry (whose real name was William Sydney Porter), her father's second cousin. In 1892, when Porter was two years old, her mother died two months after giving birth to her last child. Porter's father took his four surviving children (an older brother had died in infancy) to live with his mother, Catherine Ann Porter, in Kyle, Texas. The depth of her grandmother's influence can be inferred from Porter's later adoption of her name. Her grandmother died while taking eleven-year-old Callie to visit relatives in Marfa, Texas. After her grandmother's death, the
William T. Porter 1856, another printer, George Wilkes, began a new sporting newspaper, which he called "Porter's Spirit of the Times", and employed Porter as editor. In 1845, Porter served as secretary for the New York Jockey Club, during the famous match race between the fillies Fashion and Peytona at the Union Course on May 15, 1845. Although the "Spirit" and the "American Turf Register" were known for their coverage of horse racing, Porter's main sporting interest for himself was fishing. Porter never married, and three of his brothers died before Porter himself caught a cold and died of consumption on July 19,