If you realize too acutely how valuable time is, you are too paralyzed to do anything.

Katharine Butler Hathaway

Katharine Butler Hathaway was born on October 2, 1890, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Frank and Helen (Almy) Butler. In 1895, not long after the Butler family moved to Salem, Massachusetts, Katharine Butler Hathaway contracted tuberculosis of the spine. Her treatment, which was intended to prevent kyphosis (excessive curvature of the spine), consisted of being strapped to a weighted harness and required to lie flat on her back for the next ten years. The treatment failed and impaired her growth; at the age of 15, Katharine Butler Hathaway realized that not only had she developed kyphosis but was "the size of a ten-year old girl," as she described herself in her autobiographical book, The Little Locksmith. Katharine Butler Hathaway wrote many short stories and poems, including "The Black Pearl, A Gossamer Tale" (The Atlantic Monthly, June 1918); "To an Ancient Head of Aphrodite" (The Atlantic Monthly, January 1915); "No Strange Land" (The Atlantic Monthly, March 1915); "Hallowe'en Birth" (The Atlantic Monthly, October 1918). Her autobiographical book, The Little Locksmith, was first serialized in The Atlantic Monthly between 1942 and 1943. In 1943, it was published posthumously by her brother, Warren Butler, along with its sequel, The Journals and Letters of the Little Locksmith (Coward-McCann, 1946). The Little Locksmith was later republished in 2000, by The Feminist Press. In the summer of 1942, Katharine Butler Hathaway began to have heart trouble and spent time in and out of the hospital. Katharine Butler Hathaway died on December 24, 1942.

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