Catherine Anne Warfield at the age of sixteen, Catherine married Robert Elisha Warfield, a son of the prominent Lexington, Kentucky physician and Thoroughbred breeder, Elisha Warfield. The couple settled in his Kentucky home, where they had six children together. After their mother's death, the sisters next suffered the death in 1844 of their half-sister Mary Jane Ellis LaRoche (who appeared to have suffered from post-partum depression and lingering mental illness for several years) and later their half-brother Thomas Ellis. After Eleanor died of yellow fever in 1849, Warfield ceased writing for several years, as she was stricken with depression. In the 1830s, Catherine
Anne Shirley her an equal with Gilbert. While working as a principal, Anne has to deal with a difficult fellow teacher Katherine Brooke who goes out of her way to be rude to her. Brooke openly envies Anne's ability to have a "jolie vie", and tries to drag her down at every chance. A mature Anne has now risen above her youthful "scrapes" and is motivated by a desire to help others, realizing that Brooke's nastiness is due to her own low self-esteem, and helps find a job that better suits her than teaching. Anne and Gilbert finally marry at Green Gables,