Katherine Louise Barnsfather
 

Kentucky Post, Monday, 15 June 1903, page 2

A practical farmer, tobacco grower and stoneworker, Mrs. Katherine Louise Barnsfather tells of her experience in a hand to hand battle with the world. With almost no outside assistance and little education, Mrs. Barnsfather has raised a family of nine brothers and sisters, contributed to the support of her aged and infirm mother and is not the sole support of five small children, the eldest of whom is but 13. Perhaps the world would not apply the term successful to this toil hardened woman. She has won no plaudits, no commendation from the public not even ease for her 20 old years of service, yet she has attainted the dearest ambition, the welfare and prosperity of those dependent upon her.

“I never had time for schooling, but I’ll allow it’s a great help when you’ve got to make your own living! You see, being the oldest of nine children and them all entertaining healthy appetites, I had to hustle some!”

The speaker was a slender, sinewy woman with the frank, straightforward look of all outdoors in her deep-set blue eyes. She was Mrs. Katherine Louise Barnsfather, joint operator with the brother Charles Greter of a stone quarry on Reading Road, just below the McMillan Street Bridge, and one of the most remarkable women workers in Cincinnati. Standing in the shadow of the overhanging rock, grimy with the dust and clay of the quarry, the plucky little woman told in plain, unvarnished language, plentifully besprinkled with the idiom on the Kentucky mountains, the story of her hard struggle for existence.

“I reckon it would seem strange to me to have to sit still and do nothing. I allow work is woman’s natural sphere; at least its mine. Its nearly 20 years now since I first began to work in this stone quarry. Father was alive then and when he bought this piece of ground it was most all hill with here and there a big, ragged rock sticking out, and all around here was big chuck holes, where people were commencing to take the stone out.

I was the eldest and father and I did most of the work too! He served in the Tenth Ohio Infantry during the Civil War. After my father died, my younger brother and I worked the quarry. I married a young Kentuckian, the son of Dr. Barnsfather of Covington, who died recently. We bought a small farm near Bethlehem Ky. and planted it ingrain and tobacco. Business is business, keeping house, farming or breaking rock and I allow woman’s place is where ever she finds it.”

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Katherine Louise Grether Barnsfather married W P Aldridge 18 April 1906 in Henry Co Ky.

Child of Katherine Louise Grether and William P Aldridge

Harriet Aldridge b-1908 in Bethlehem, Henry Co Ky.

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Henry County Local, New Castle, 8 October 1943

Mrs. Louise Grether Aldridge, 76, of Pleasureville, died at the home of her nephew, Howard Willhite, Shelby County, Thursday, September 16, 1943, of a heart attack. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Funeral services were conducted at the Thomas Funeral Home in Pleasureville, Saturday, September 19th, with Rev E N Chandler officiating. Burial was in the Dutch Tract Cemetery.

She is survived by three daughters: Mrs. Monterey Parks, Campbellsburg, Mrs. Anna Soch, Los Angeles Ca. and Mrs. Hattie Aldridge, Lexington; two sons, Charlie Barnsfather and James Barnsfather, both of Pleasureville; three sisters Mrs. J H Wilson, Mrs. Harry Kohlmeyer and Mrs. Cora Morlock and a brother, Charles Grether, all of Cincinnati; thirty-one children and eleven great-grandchildren.

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