Katharina von Bora was the daughter of a Jan von Bora auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, whose family name has not been established. Both were only specifically mentioned in the year 1505. It is certain that her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531. This letter is the only evidence for Katharina von Bora's time spent within the monastery. At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near
Catharine Merrill and served in the Indiana General Assembly (1819–22) and as Indiana's first state treasurer (1822–34). Samuel was responsible for moving the state treasury to the new state capital at Indianapolis in 1824; his young family, which included nine-month-old Catharine, joined him on the journey. Catharine, nicknamed Kate, was the third of ten children. Merrill's mother died in 1847 and an older sister died two years later. Merrill's father married Elizabeth Young of Madison, Indiana, in 1849; he died in 1855. During this period, Catharine helped care for her younger siblings. Other members of the extended family also lived with the