A Kay Francis Chronology…

 

 

When exact dates for an event which took place during a year are unknown to me, I have placed them in [brackets]. If there is no information for a specific year, I have the space below intentionally empty.

1905
January 13. Katharine Gibbs is born in Oklahoma City, OK.
November. Harsh weather in Oklahoma City causes the Gibbs family to relocate to Santa Barbara, California.
December. The Gibbs family moves from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles.

1906
[The family next relocates to Salt Lake City, Utah sometime within the first half of the year.
Around the same time, Katherine brings Katharine and herself back to New York, leaving Joe Gibbs, Kay’s father, behind. Katherine decides to go back to work as an actress to support Kay and herself.]

1907

1908
[Kay sees her father for the last time while he’s out visiting her and her mother in New York.]

1909
[Kay accompanies her mother, without performing, with the Lindsay Morison Stock Company. Katherine remains with the troupe for at least a year.]

1910

1911

1912

1913

1914
[Kay accompanies her mother on another tour, this time with legendary vaudevillian Harry Brooks in “The Old Minstrel Man.”]

1915

1916

1917

1918

1919
January 20. Kay’s father, Joe Gibbs, dies of pneumonia in St. Louis. Kay never hears the news, and lives the rest of her life not knowing whatever happened to her father. (He was survived by his new wife, Minnie, and their two daughters, four-year-old Virginia and five-year-old Helen, Kay’s half-sisters. The Homer Masonic Lodge pays for his $15 funeral and burial.)
Fall. Kay, at fourteen, begins receiving her first professional education at the Ossining School for Girls in Ossining, New York.
September 10. Kay goes to NY to attend a homecoming parade for General John J. Pershing returning home from the First World War. A policeman picks Kay up, placing her on his shoulders so she can catch a glimpse of Pershing.

A Kay Francis Chronology:
 
1900s/1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s-on