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 literature, especially the "tall tale" form of humor. Porter encouraged Southwestern authors to write and publish their short stories in the "Spirit", and was involved in getting their works published in book form. He was the editor for two of these collections: "The Big Bear of Arkansas", published in 1846, and "A Quarter Race in Kentucky and Other Sketches", published in 1847. Porter was instrumental in encouraging the career of Johnson Hooper. Another writer who contributed to the "Spirit" was Henry William Herbert, who wrote under the pen name "Frank Forester". The Panic of 1837 hurt the "Spirit's" circulation, but