Katherine Bloodgood

Katherine "Kitty" Spencer was born in Ithaca, New York and raised in San Diego, California.^[1]

Bloodgood was a contralto singer of "singular power, richness, beauty and breadth", according to one reviewer, who also noted her "fine stage presence" and that she sang equally well in German and English.^[2] She performed for the Manuscript Society of New York in 1897,^[3] and at Carnegie Hall in 1898, where the New York Times reviewer said she "sang with the assurance and aplomb of an experienced artist."^[4]

In 1898, as a celebrated beauty, she sold kisses at a charity fair in St. Louis, Missouri, sometimes for as much as $500 a kiss. This publicity stunt was cited by her husband as a cause for their widely publicized divorce a year later.^[5][6]

After her divorce, she was often featured on programs that included a wide range of performance genres.^[7] "She has decided to stay in the vaudeville field, at least for a time, as she finds it much more lucrative than the concert field," explained a San Francisco magazine.^[8] In 1904 Bloodgood appeared on a vaudeville bill with Blind Tom Wiggins at an opera house in Rochester, New York, just months before Wiggins's health ended his long performing career.^[9] In 1906, she was "the artistic number" on a Washington, D.C., variety program that included acrobats, comedians, and trained animals.^[10]

Katherine Spencer married twice. She was first wed to William Denton Bloodgood in 1889, when she was 17 years old. This marriage ended in divorce in 1899.^[5] She married again in 1902, to Howard Hapgood Kipp, a Marine officer.^[11] She had two sons, Elwyn Lynotte Bloodgood (1890-1935) and Hapgood Kipp (1907-2000), and a daughter, Eleanore Mayo Kipp (born 1909 in the Philippines).^[12] Elwyn may have accompanied Lieutenant Kipp to a posting on Guam in 1903.^[13][14]

Katherine Spencer Bloodgood Kipp died in 1967, in Los Angeles, California, aged 95 years.