In 1855, while Katharine Alva Taggart's mother was still pregnant with her first child, the family moved her to the free state of Kansas. Tensions on the Missouri-Kansas border remained high throughout the American Civil War, and by the time the girl was eight years old, Kat lost both her parents in clashes between those on either side of the slavery issue. Orphaned, the young girl lived a varied life in the west, first living with a schoolteacher...