A mystery no more—a Fortean.
I’ve written about Kathleen Ludwick before, and was not able to find any reliable biographical information. She wrote one science fiction tale, “Dr. Imortelle,” which appeared in a 1930 issue of Amazing Stories. As a result of this piece, others have tried to ferret out something about her life, but have either not gotten anywhere or made incorrect assumptions. In his great resource Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years, Everett Bleiler supposes, based on social security records, that Ludwick was born in Maryland in 1892 and died in New York in 1970. But that doesn’t seem correct.
The Kathleen Ludwick who wrote “Dr. Immortelle” gave her address as Oakland California. And, from the census of 1930, it is known that there was a (different) Kathleen Ludwick in Oakland. That Ludwick says that she was sixty—so born around 1870—and originally from Nevada. There is further reason to suspect that there were two Kathleen Ludwicks living around this time. A search of the name at newspaperarchives.com gives a pot of articles from Pennsylvania and a second lot from Oakland.
I’ve written about Kathleen Ludwick before, and was not able to find any reliable biographical information. She wrote one science fiction tale, “Dr. Imortelle,” which appeared in a 1930 issue of Amazing Stories. As a result of this piece, others have tried to ferret out something about her life, but have either not gotten anywhere or made incorrect assumptions. In his great resource Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years, Everett Bleiler supposes, based on social security records, that Ludwick was born in Maryland in 1892 and died in New York in 1970. But that doesn’t seem correct.
The Kathleen Ludwick who wrote “Dr. Immortelle” gave her address as Oakland California. And, from the census of 1930, it is known that there was a (different) Kathleen Ludwick in Oakland. That Ludwick says that she was sixty—so born around 1870—and originally from Nevada. There is further reason to suspect that there were two Kathleen Ludwicks living around this time. A search of the name at newspaperarchives.com gives a pot of articles from Pennsylvania and a second lot from Oakland.