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Matilda Catharine Oglesby  Catharine
Oglesby was born December 3, 189 5 in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri,
eldest daughter of Marcellus Lloyd "M.L." Oglesby and Mary "Mamie"
Catharine Bates. She came to Denison with her family in 1899,
when she was not yet 4 years old. Her younger sister, Mary
Bernice was born in 1900 in Sedalia, as well but died in February 1900
after the family had moved to Grayson County, Texas. The third
daughter of M.L. and Matilda, Marcella Roberta, was born March
29, 1902 in Denison, Grayson County.
Texas, The reason for the family's move to Denison was that their father was hired to manage the Union Depot Hotel, owned by the Katy Railroad. The Oglesby family lived in the hotel, which was formerly the McDougall Hotel, adjacent to the depot on the north end. Mr. Oglesby was also in charge of the railroad dining cars. Mrs. Oglesby probably helped her husband run the hotel and restaurant. The new Denison Hotel was formally opened to the public on September 22, 1902; M.L. Oglesby, who had been in charge of the Union Depot Hotel for over two years, was made manager of the new hotel. (The Denison Press, Wednesday, September 22, 1902) The family made their home in the Denison Hotel. Mr. Oglesby returned to the employ of the railroad and was manager of the Katy Lunch Counter. (Sherman, Texas City Directory, 1905) Once again Mr. Marcellus assumed the manager position of the Denion Hotel in 1906. (Denison, Texas City Directory, 1907) By late summer of 1911 the local newspaper made mention of Mr. Oglesby being manager of the Katy dining department. (The Sunday Gazetteer, Sunday, August 27, 1911) Catharine attended St. Xavier's Academy in Denison. During the 1902-1903 school commencement Catharine portrayed played the character of the "lost child" from "Queen Flora's Day Dream operetta; the newpaper reported her as a "rare talent" in that her portrayal of the little girl lost in the woods "...was so real as to enlist the sympathies of her audience...." (The Sunday Gazetteer, Sunday, June 21, 1903, pg.1) However, Catharine graduated from St. Joseph 's Academy, an all-girls Catholic school (Lockport, Niagra County, New York) in 1914. She returned to Texas to teach English and expression at Ft. Worth's Our Lady of Victory academy. Mr. Oglesby died January 2, 1915 in his apartments in the Katy Hotel. He was buried alongside his infant daughter in Calvary Cemetery. His wife moved for a time to Yonkers, New York but returned to Denison by April 1930 and had a room in the A.D. & Nell Collins home. (1930 Denison, Texas Federal Census) When World War I was declared on April 6, 1917, 21-year-old "ran away" and applied for a job briefly for the Ft. Worth Record; then she was hired as the first woman report by the Star-Telegram. She gave the editor 7 good reasons for hiring her. She got the job and as the new journalist went by a recruiting station, she met a doughboy about to go overseas, who confided in her that he was an orphan but had prayed every night that before he left some mother would adopt him. Catharine raced back to her typewriter and wrote a heart-wrenching human interest story, "Wanted - a mother". Her front page story resulted in 93 potential mothers offering to adopt the doughboy. The story earned her a permanent position on the newspaper. In the years that followed, Catharine worked hard to depict the horror and sacrifice - the kind of stories that would help win the war. She later said, "I was the only girl too busy to have a date with a soldier." She was the last person to interview Vernon Castle, famous dancer and member of the Royal Flying Corps, before he fell to his death when his plane crashed on a training flight at a base near Ft. Worth, Texas in February 1918. One of her first stories about military camp life in Texas was a plea for blanked for the soldiers at Camp Bowie; the next night all the soldiers were under their own blankets. She learned of the Armistice before anyone else while she was at Ft. Sam Houston and had the thrill of announcing the end of World War I to the officers there. Even though the war was over, there was still a need for recruits. Miss Oglesby flew with Army recruiters to cities in north Texas seeking men to join the Army's aviation service.  With the war over, Catharine sought excitement for her stories. She told her editor that she wanted to go to the oil fields. With the oil gushers spouting to the skies everywhere, Catharine packed her clothes and typewriter and moved to the oil fields to begin writing human interest stories "from the last frontier." Still in her early 20s, she arrived in Ranger, Texas when tents were on the ground. There she met Tex Rickard "Jess" Willard, the sports promoter, and other big figures. Becoming friends with Tex Willard soon sent Catharine to Toledo, Ohio to cover the story of the fight on July 4, 1919 between world heavyweight boxing champion Jess Willard and challenger Jack Dempsey. While there she confided to another writer that she wanted to be a New York City newspaperwoman. Betting all of her savings on Dempsey, who won the fight, the "small town woman" resigned from the Star-Telegram and financed her move to New York City.  In September 1919 married newspaperman E. Cameron McEntyre of the New York Herald and Evening Telegram. While residing in New York City, Catharine opened a beauty salon on 5th Avenue, became advertising manager for Elizabeth Arden and associate editor of Ladies' Home Journal. In 1938 Catharine became the first woman to open an advertising agency. By the 1940s she and Cameron McEntyre had divorced and she married Fred Hughes, who also owned an advertising agency. Mr. McEntyre died a few years after they were married, and she never married again. After operating her agency for 20 years, she retired to paint and travel. Catharine Oglesby died Saturday, February 13, 1982 in Pasadena, California at the age of 86. Her remains were cremated and buried in the family plot at Calvary Cemetery, Denison, Grayson County, Texas. Source: "Extra! Extra! Read All About It: 'Girl Reporter' Breaks Glass Ceilings" "Hometown by Handlebar: Cowtown as seen from a very narrow bicycle seat." Posted November 15, 2020 by "hometown".  with assistance from Jim Sears Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |