ut the French. Giving Kate a history lesson about how the French founded !
             the city along the banks of the Mississippi. Some of these stories were false, but Kate didn't know the difference. They were just, "being no more than the scandals of another day" (Magill 205). In the end, Kate received an altogether unconventional education from her great-grandmother. Kate began a more conventional education at the Madames of the Sacred Heart Convent in 1860. There, the nuns taught her discipline and a respectable academic curriculum. Kate also along with English, learned French literature as well. Kate began to play the piano at an early age. "Kitty Garesche recalls Kate being an accomplished pianist with an exceptional musical memory" (Baechler 68). Kate began her music with her great-grandmother supervising her piano playing. The great-grandmother would sit patiently with Kate as she practiced her scales. She done this to teach her the importance of discipline and technique. During her schooling with the Madames of the Sacred Heart, the nuns encouraged Ka!
             te to continue with her piano playing. "By the time she reached adolescence, Kate O'Flaherty was an accomplished musician" (Unger 205). "In June 1868, Kate graduated from the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. She then plunged into the fashionable life, and for two years she was...'One of he acknowledged belles of St. Louis'" (Skaggs 2). After Kate's graduation, she emerged from the dark period of her brother's death, Kate became a popular young woman. In 1869 she began to smoke, which is highly unusual for a woman in those days. "For two years Kate lived a life of an attractive girl in the 'high society' (of French Origin) in which her mother moved" (Kunitz 150). She was greatly fascinated by all the varieties of people she met in New Orleans."She met aristocratic Creoles, unpretentious...