Catherine was born in Kentucky on April 11, 1820, fourth child and eldest daughter to Goldsby and Mary E. (Thomas) Childers. Her family, originally from Kentucky had settled a short time near Quincy, Illinois before coming to Texas in 1833 with a group of families from that area that included the Parker family of  Fort Parker, Texas. Goldsby Childers was granted land in 1835 in the Robertson Colony in Milam County, on the north bank of Little River. This area was on the frontier where they were somewhat isolated from the events leading up to the Texas Revolution, and more concerned with the Native tribes’ movement through this area. Early on they had peaceful encounters with them but these heated up as things were leading to war with Mexico. Along with their neighbors they were often packing up and moving to safer more fortified settlements. When they learned of the fall of the Alamo and the Goliad massacre in the spring of 1836 they headed to Parker Fort. Once they got to the fort the young men left to join the Texas Army, but met men returning from the battle of San Jacinto and learned the conflict was over. The Childers wanted to return to their settlement and tend to their crops which saved them from being at Fort Parker when it was attacked by a mixed party of Natives, killing most of the inhabitants and kidnapping Cynthia Ann Parker and others on May 19, 1836. The Childers did not learn of this event until June 1836 and were warned to seek protection once again.

Catherine turned sixteen in 1836, and though the Childers were fortunate to escape this horrifying ordeal at Fort Parker, had their own frightful attacks and family losses. Her eldest brother, Thomas Childers, accidentally shot himself and died on the way to Fort Parker and the family laid him to rest along the road. In June when they learned of the attack on the Parkers by two messengers from Nashville the seat of Robertson’s Colony, they were told of natives still in their area so they loaded up their wagon along with the other settlers on Little River and headed to Nashville for safety. The small group of seventeen was attacked by a band of about 200 in a clearing not far from what is now Cameron, Texas. Two men who had set out ahead of the rest were attacked first allowing Goldsby Childers to get the rest into a defendable position. After killing the two front men and observing the others ready to defend themselves the natives left and the Childers were able to make it safely to Nashville the following day. The family would return to their land by early fall but as other native escapades occurred they accepted an invitation from Lt. George B. Erath to live at Little River Fort that winter 1836-1837. While living there Catherine’s brother, James Franklin Childers, was killed when the ranger company he had joined in January decided to attack a much larger band of natives in what is known as the Elm Creek Fight. To say the least, Catherine had to grow up tough on the frontier of Texas.

Prior to her eighteenth birthday in 1838 Catherine met E. Lawrence Stickney and married him a few months later.  Lawrence, a young lawyer had arrived in Texas August 1, 1836 from Baltimore, Maryland, though he had been raised in Mobile, Alabama. He joined the Texas Republic Army and due to his education and beautiful penmanship advanced to adjutant of Major Holmes Battalion and had many positions in the Senate of the new republic government. Privately he also worked as a lawyer which brought him into contact with the Childers family as well as being appointed clerk for the Milam County Land Commission. Catherine may have followed Lawrence to Houston during the third Congressional Session November 1838 through January 1839 when he was elected Reporter to the Senate. President Lamar’s movement of the capital to Austin made it easier for Catherine to be in closer contact with her family and I suspect she lived with them occasionally when Lawrence was working for the government. Lawrence worked his way up as a civil servant into the position of the Republic’s leading tax collector as Commissioner of Revenue. President Lamar left the republic in dire economic straits. When Sam Houston returned to the presidency he fired the current Secretary of the Treasury, eliminated Lawrence’s current job of Commissioner of Revenue and appointed him Acting Secretary of the Treasury. This was a frustrating time to be in charge of the indebted Republic’s finances, but Catherine was supporting him and caring for their two eldest children at this time and it is her name on the deed for an Austin city lot purchased at auction on September 1, 1840.

General Rafael Vasquez marched his army of 700 into San Antonio on March 5, 1842. Encountering very little resistance, he planted the Mexican flag and after a couple days returned to Mexico. This event enabled San Houston to move the government out of Austin and seemingly ended Lawrence’s career as a civil servant for the Republic of Texas. Two years later Lawrence and Catherine are in Caldwell where Lawrence is principle of the Caldwell Male and Female Academy according to a newspaper ad that also refers to them capable of taking in student boarders in their home. By 1850 they were back into civic duties in the newly formed Bell County. Lawrence drew the initial town plat of Nolansville, (the original name of Belton, Texas) and worked as a deputy county and district clerk, and a notary public. They owned a couple of lots in the town of Nolansville, and a six-acre farm on the edge of town where tragically they were flooded out May 14, 1853. Barely escaping with their lives, this was a catalyst that caused Lawrence to give up on Texas all together and return to Alabama. They sold most of their properties in Texas and headed to Mobile for some uncertain opportunity. After settling into Mobile and almost exactly a year after the flood, Lawrence contracted yellow fever and died May 9, 1854. Catherine was pregnant with their youngest child a daughter, Hannah Jane, who was born June 16, 1854 in Mobile.

With no husband how was Catherine going to support her family? She made the decision to return to Texas and according to The Austin State Times newspaper on January 13, 1855 it reported “. . . Mrs. Stickney and family, [from] Mobile; . . .” checked into the Metropolitan hotel in Austin. Obviously Catherine felt she wanted to raise her children back in Texas near her family who had fought and died for the right to be there. Catherine’s parents were already deceased before she left Texas but was returning to three brothers and two sisters and their families who had moved further west into the new county of Coryell. Her sister Caroline was married to O. T. Tyler who was now chief justice of Coryell County and that is where Catherine and her children settled, but mournful events were to continue in Texas. Catherine’s two eldest daughters Mary and Lydia married John P. Key. First Mary and John were married July 1, 1856 by O. T. Tyler. Mary died prior to her sister, Lydia’s marriage to Key on January 11, 1860 and Lydia died sometime prior to John’s third marriage to Mrs. Martha A. Coats on December 15, 1864.

In 1860, according to the US Census, Catherine age 38 and her younger children Emma age 14, James Franklin age 11, and Hannah age 6 were living with John P. Key age 27 and elder daughter Lydia age 17. The two previous households listed on this census are her brothers William and Pryor Childers and their respective families in Plum Creek, Coryell County, Texas. In 1870 Catherine and youngest daughter Hannah are living in Gatesville with daughter Emma who is now married to Crocket King who was the son of William King who came into Texas in 1836 with her father from Maryland. By this time John P. Key had helped Catherine’s son James Franklin Stickney find unclaimed land near Jonesboro, Coryell County to homestead. Youngest daughter Hannah married James Madison Sargent June 19, 1873 and Catherine is living with them according to the 1880 census. Catherine was thirteen when she came to Texas and lived through the hardships it took to make it the home for her children and many generations to come after, ending her journey on Christmas Day 1880 surrounded by at least three of her grandchildren.