|
Hattie
Cochran
(November 24, 1890-January 2, 1975)
Real-life model for Lloyd Sherman,
in Annie Fellows Johnston's "Little Colonel" series
|

Hattie (Harriet) Cochran
of Pewee Valley, Kentucky
the real-life "Little Colonel"
at age 5, 1896 |
Along this street one summer morning, nearly thirty years ago, came
stepping an old Confederate Colonel. Every one greeted him deferentially.
He was always pointed out to new comers. Some people called attention to
him because he had given his right arm to the lost cause, some because
they thought he resembled Napoleon, and others because they had some
amusing tale to tell of his eccentricities. He was always clad in white
duck in the summer, and was wrapped in a picturesque military cape in the
winter.
This morning a child of delicate flower-like beauty walked beside him. She
was pushing a doll buggy in which rode a parrot that had lost some of its
tail feathers, and at her heels trailed a Scotch-and-Skye terrier.
"She's her grandfather all over again," remarked a lady in one of the
carriages, "temper, lordly manners, imperious ways and all. I call her
'The Little Colonel.' There's a good title for you, Cousin Anne. Put her
in a book."
Annie Fellows Johnston,
In her autobiography,
Land of the Little Colonel (1929)
Shirley Temple may have
played the title role in Twentieth Century Fox’s 1935 box office hit, “The
Little Colonel,” but it was Hattie Cochran, a small girl living in Pewee
Valley, who inspired Annie Fellows Johnston to pen the original “Little
Colonel” story in 1895. The author’s first glimpse of Hattie with her
maternal grandfather, Civil War veteran Colonel
George Washington Weissinger, is described in the passage above from
Johnston’s autobiography, Land of the Little Colonel.
|

Hattie Cochran as a baby
winter 1890-91
from Isabelle
Dayton’s private collection. She is a descendent of Hattie Cochran’s
great-uncle and the Old Colonel’s brother, Harry Weissinger |
Nearly half a century later, Hallie Burge
Jacob, Annie Fellows Johnston’s niece by marriage, provided another
version of how the first “Little Colonel” tale came into being in this
excerpt from an article, called “The Naming of a Book,” by Hamilton Howard
that appeared in the September 11, 1943 “Courier-Journal:”
Hattie Cochran, the original "Little
Colonel" of literary fame, was, as anybody in Pewee Valley would tell
you, a cute child but "bad as she could be."
When the Little Colonel was three and Hallie Burge, now Mrs. Donald
Jacob of Louisville, was just entering her teens, Mrs. Cochran brought
Hattie over to visit Mrs. Burge and Annie Fellows Johnston. Mrs.
Johnston, later to become author of the famous Little Colonel series of
books, was staying at the old Burge Place visiting the Burges, cousins
of Mr. Johnston.
People said little Hattie Cochran was just like her grandfather, Colonel
Weissinger, who had a "vile temper and cursed every breath he took."
Hattie didn't want to go home that afternoon. She dragged back,
screamed, and sat down on the floor, beating it with her tiny heels.
Mrs. Burge turned to Mrs. Johnston, "Now, there," she said, "Just write
a book about that! And call it The Little Colonel!"

Hattie Cochran, with
Fritz in her doll buggy, as she first appeared to Annie Fellows Johnston.
From “Land of the Little
Colonel,” published in 1974 by Mrs. John S. Smith
from Fox Film Corporation Scrapbook by
the Little Colonel Productions, Inc.
The Little Colonel’s descriptions of the fictional Lloyd Sherman
mirror many aspects of the real-life Hattie Cochran, from her constant
companion, the Scotch-and-Skye terrier, Fritz (shown in the photo above),
to the hot temper she inherited from her grandfather:
From
Chapter I,
when Lloyd Sherman first meets her
grandfather, Colonel Lloyd in the story:
As
the Colonel came nearer she tossed another berry into the dog's mouth. A
twig snapped, and she raised a startled face toward him.
"Suh?"
she said, timidly, for it seemed to her that the stern, piercing eyes
had spoken.
"What
are you doing here, child?" he asked, in a voice so much kinder than his
eyes that she regained her usual self-possession at once.
"Eatin'
'trawberries," she answered, coolly.
"Who
are you, anyway?" he exclaimed, much puzzled. As he asked the question
his gaze happened to rest on the dog, who was peering at him through the
ragged, elfish wisps of hair nearly covering its face, with eyes that
were startlingly human.
"'Peak when yo'ah 'poken to, Fritz," she said, severely, at the same
time popping another luscious berry into her mouth.
Fritz
obediently gave a long yelp. The Colonel smiled grimly.
"What's your name?" he asked, this time looking directly at her.
"Mothah
calls me her baby," was the soft-spoken reply, "but papa an' Mom Beck
they calls me the Little Cun'l."
"What
under the sun do they call you that for?" he roared.
"'Cause I'm so much like you," was the startling answer.
"Like
me!" fairly gasped the Colonel. "How are you like me?"
"Oh,
I'm got such a vile tempah, an' I stamps my foot when I gets mad, an'
gets all red in the face. An' I hollahs at folks, an' looks jus' zis
way."
She
drew her face down and puckered her lips into such a sullen pout that it
looked as if a thunder-storm had passed over it. The next instant she
smiled up at him serenely.

The Little Colonel & Walker(?) work near the
strawberry patch
from Fox Film Corporation Scrapbook by the Little Colonel Productions, Inc.
From
Chapter III, when the Little Colonel is caught making mud pies on the
front steps of her grandfather’s stately home, The
Locust:
…The
same temper that glared from the face of the man, sitting erect in his
saddle, seemed to be burning in the eyes of the child who stood so
defiantly before him.
The
same kind of scowl drew their eyebrows together darkly.
"Don't you talk that way to me," cried the Little Colonel, trembling
with a wrath she did not know how to express.
Suddenly she stooped, and snatching both hands full of mud from the
overturned pie, flung it wildly over the spotless white coat.
Colonel Lloyd gasped with astonishment. It was the first time in his
life he had ever been openly defied. The next moment his anger gave way
to amusement.
"By
George!" he chuckled, admiringly. "The little thing has got spirit, sure
enough. She's a Lloyd through and through. So that's why they call her
the 'Little Colonel,' is it?"
There
was a tinge of pride in the look he gave her haughty little head and
flashing eyes.
"There, there, child!" he said, soothingly, "I didn't mean to make you
mad, when you were good enough to come and see me. It isn't often I have
a little lady like you pay me a visit."
"I
didn't come to see you, suh," she answered, indignantly, as she started
toward the gate. "I came to see May Lilly. But I nevah would have come
inside yo' gate if I'd known you was goin' to hollah at me an' be so
cross."
She
was walking off with the air of an offended queen, when the Colonel
remembered that if he allowed her to go away in that mood she would
probably never set foot on his grounds again. Her display of temper had
interested him immensely.

Hattie Cochran as a young lady, 1905
The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation
Hattie Cochran herself
noted how true-to-life the first book in the “Little Colonel” series was
in the following transcript of a letter to a Shelbyville fan, Elizabeth
Kathleen Hansborough, written in 1907. The letter now resides in The
Filson Historical Society’s collection in Louisville, Ky.
July 17, 1907
Pewee Valley, Ky.
Dear Elizabeth—
I am the real Little Colonel though everything in the books are not
true.
You ask is my home like Mrs. Johnston describes it, sorry to say it is
not, though there is a real Locust not far from where I live, where my
Grandfather, Colonel Weissinger used to stay. Perhaps you know of Mr.
Harry Weissinger who has a summer home in Shelbyville, he was my
Grandfather’s brother.
All of the Waltons are real, and the Beeches, the name of their place,
is right in Pewee. Also the haunted
house
of Hartwell Hollow.
Mrs. MacIntyre really Mrs. Craig lives opposite Mrs. Lawton, her
daughter. I suppose you know they are general Lawton’s family and Miss
Allison or Miss Craig is my teacher. She is just as lovely a character
out of the stories as in.
The MacIntyre boys are the Culbertsons of Louisville and Rob Moore’s
real name is Muir Semple. He does not live in Pewee, but Oaklea is here
and he often visits his cousin Anna Moore or Anna Muir.
Betty is real but I do not know her.
Mrs. Johnston has met girls like Eugenia and Joyce and thought she would
use their characters in the Books of course you know everything in
fiction cannot be true.
Phil is also fiction and so is Mary Ware.
Mom Beck is real and so was Fritz (her Scotch and Skye terrier) but is
now dead.
The Little Colonel or the first book was practically the truest and all
the others, some parts are true and others are not.
Perhaps you think I am grown but I am not, as I am only sixteen, though
in the books she has made me much older.
Hoping you will not be disappointed in knowing the real truth.
Very Sincerely,
Hattie Cochran
(Note that in 1907, Annie Fellows
Johnston published the “Little Colonel’s
Knight Comes Riding” in which Lloyd gets married. The real
Little Colonel didn’t marry until 1912.)
Much later in life, she reminisced about the
books that made her famous in this interview excerpted from a “Louisville
Times” story called “The Little Colonel Gives Old Family Recipes” written
by Helen Leopold, women’s editor:
…
The other day when
Mrs. Dick was hunting up recipes for us to use she realized that Mrs.
Johnston got the idea for the first Little Colonel book when she, then
Hattie Cochran, was five years old.
“Our family was
spending the summer at Pewee Valley, which used to be sort of a
Louisville summer resort. Mrs. Johnston’s home was there.”
“I was so much like
my grandfather,
Colonel George Weissinger (he was an
imperious, peppery sort of man) that it amused Mrs. Johnston. She
always called me the Little Colonel, even before the book was started.
“She used to watch
me ride in the saddle with my grandfather on his horse, Maggie Boy, and
she’d see me carry my polly parrot around on a broom handle and wheel
Fritz, my dog, in a doll carriage.”
Her reminiscences regarding how the series originated and its
unanticipated popularity can be found in “Mrs. Albert Dick Remembers” by
Yvonne Eaton, which ran in the August 7, 1969 issue of the
“Courier-Journal:”
…“You know Mrs.
Johnston was so surprised when she heard from the publisher how well
they (the first book in the series, “The
Little Colonel”) was selling,” Mrs. Dick said. “she began writing
for she had two children [note: there were
actually three: Rena, Mary and John] to support. Her husband was
killed” in a flood. [NOTE: this is NOT true
according to Annie Fellows Johnston’s autobiography] “Her son had
TB and that’s why she went to Arizona,” which was the setting for some
of the series.
Mrs. Dick recalled
that she first met Annie Fellows Johnston as a child in the middle
1890s. She and her mother, the late
Mrs. John Hoadley Cochran, stayed at a rooming house owned by Mrs.
Johnston’s aunt
[Burge] while the Cochrans were looking for a house in which to
live in Pewee Valley.
"One day I came into the dining
room and stamped my foot about something. Mrs. Johnston said, 'Amelia
(Mrs. Dick’s mother) I have the title for my story I’m writing about
Hattie and her grandfather.'" In
the books the Little Colonel’s name is Lloyd Sherman.
Mrs. Dick’s
maternal grandfather, Col. George Weissinger,
was a peppery, determined gentleman whose young granddaughter Hattie
took after him in temperament.
Asked if she had
temper tantrums, Mrs. Dick said that she didn’t know what that was, but
indeed she used to lie on the floor and beat her heals and head – “Why
every child does that.”…
Hattie Cochran was born
on November 24, 1890 to
John Hoadley and Amelia Weissinger Cochran (Papa
Jack and Mrs. Sherman Sherman in the “Little Colonel” books). Her
parents had been married less than a year when their daughter was born,
according to Oldham County marriage records, which list their wedding date
as March 6, 1890.
The family lived in a
cottage that still stands on Pewee Valley’s
Maple Avenue. Just as Annie Fellows Johnston describes the fictional
Sherman cottage, snowball bushes once lined the front walk. The Cochrans
lived there until 1909, when they moved to Louisville, where they lived
several years in Apartment 1 of the Owens-Hill building at 1300 Sixth
Street, according to the Caron Directory.
A1910 letter written by
Mamie
Lawton ("Mrs. Walton") to Annie Fellows Johnston mentions their move
to the city:
… Hattie Cochran
spent last night with the girls, and they had four nice beaux to supper
-- and a jolly time together after the boys left on the 9:30 car.
We miss the
Cochrans very much in "Cranford." You know they wouldn't sign the
contract for their apartments until the landlord inserted a special
clause permitting "Bob-Angel" & "Buzz" the cat to enjoy its comforts
with them.
Bob promptly lost
himself, and the family were in a terrible state. Amelia returning
to Pewee, and the others searching in every direction they could think
of - Bob finally turned up, none the worse except for mud and dirt.
The prodigal was carried in & laid tenderly on the clean white bed and
petted – then bathed in the family tub, fed nice cream and petted some
more…

Though it looks like the
Little Colonel astride Tar Baby, this 1970 photo shows Amy Alsop riding
Tom Terrific, Sally Tanselle’s pony, alongside the Little Colonel’s
cottage. The Tanselle family moved into the cottage that year.
Photo from “A Place
Called Pewee Valley,” published by the Pewee Valley Centennial Commission
in 1970
As a child, Hattie
attended Pewee Valley’s
Villa Ridge School, taught by Miss Fanny Craig,
Miss Allison in the tales. Later, she finished her schooling at Miss
Kendrick’s School in Cincinnati, Ohio, according to this profile that
appeared in “Kentucky Lives: the Blue Grass State’s Who’s Who,” by
Hambleton Tapp, published in 1966:
DICK, HATTIE COCHRAN
(Mrs. Albert C.),
homemaker, 301 O’Read Road, Louisville. She was born in Louisville,
Kentucky, the daughter of John Hoadley Cochran and Amelia (Weissinger)
Cochran. Mrs. Dick was educated at Miss Kendrick’s School in Cincinnati,
Ohio. On October 3, 1912, she was married to Albert C. Dick, and they
are the parents of two sons, Albert C. Dick, Jr., and J.H. Cochran Dick.
Mrs. Dick has devoted her life to the service of her family, community
and friends. She has set an example for all of those who have been
privileged to know her in her gracious way of life. She holds membership
in Louisville Country Club and the Pendennis Club. Politically, Mrs.
Dick is a member of the Republican Party.

Allison Walton=Frances Lawton (standing)
Kitty Walton=Catherine Lawton & the Little Colonel (seated)
(click on picture for more)
“Sunshine and Shadow,”
the autobiography of Cary Hoge Mead privately published in 1983, includes
some insights into Hattie’s debutante days. Hattie came out with Cary’s
sister, Bess Hoge:
Sunshine and
Shadow," pgs. 68-69
"Bess had made her
debut that year and was quite a 'toast.' She had much of Mamma's wit and
charm, and things were generally gay and full of laughter wherever she
was. ..They (the debutantes) were a delightful group that year, and they
all had a glorious time; Eliza Grinstead, whom William (Cary's brother)
described as having a flower-like face and stem-like figure -- Julia
Kinkead, who was a redhead and full of fun -- Lala Swearingen, also a
redhead -- Nellie Ganter, a darling -- Hattie Cochran (the Little
Colonel) and her cousin, Blanche Weissinger Smith…
More details about her debutante year can be found in a
clippings scrapbook compiled by the Little Colonel Doll Club now at the
Louisville Free Public Library’s main branch on York Street:
The
Little Colonel was a great favorite with the girls who came out that
year and was included in most of their parties. Mrs. Robert Tyler who
for many years has entertained the season’s debutantes, gave a dinner on
Thanksgiving Day in Hayfield for Miss Cochran. A party to see Ethel
Barrymore in “Mid-Channel” at Macauley’s followed by a supper in The
Seelbach Rathskeller was given by Mrs. Amanthus Smith Jungbluth. Mrs.
Heywood Cochran was hostess at a buffet supper and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Floyd Smith gave a dinner-dance for the debutante.
It was during her
season that Miss Cochran was an attendant in the wedding of her cousin,
the late Helen Cochran Donigan, and Isaac Hilliard on November 2 in
Calvary Church. The rich green satin Empire bridesmaid gown veiled in
crewstal dew drop tulle with a silver cord about hr waistline seemed
particularly to suit her delicate beauty. And from under her large green
beaver hat with its black tulle bow trimming, one caught a glimpse of
her soft wavy brown hair, with a cluster of puffs caught at the nape of
the neck.
Among the girls who
made their debut that year were Bessie Hoge (Mrs. Edmund Meriwether,
whose daughter, Elizabeth, is one of this season’s debutantes);
Elizabeth Bullitt (Mrs. E.T. Hutchings), Fanny Brandeis, Blanche
Weissinger Smith (Mrs. Peyton H. Hoge, Janet Colson (Mrs. Harry W.
Embry), Anna Cartledge (Mrs. Richard R. Williams), Eliza Helm Grinstead
(Mrs. L.L. Warren), Julia Hunt Johnston (Mrs. Boyd Martin), Carolyn
Hulbert, Julia Kinkead (Mrs. Baylor Landrum of Lexington), Mary Lucy
Hull, Jane tJoyes, Nellie Elizabeth Ganter (Mrs. A.C. Schriener of
Kerrville, Texas), Catherine Castner (Mrs. Frank Towsley of Norville,
Tenn.), Lala Swearingen (Mrs. Ralph C. Gifford), Mary Rogers Lyons (Mrs.
Robinson Brown), and two out-of-town girls, Aleene Murphy of Germantown,
Penn., who spent the winter with Mr. and Mrs Lawrence Richardson, and
Eliza McMullin, who was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bainbridge
Richardson.
On October 3, 1912,
Hattie married Albert Conrad Dick, a 1907 graduate of Centre College in
Danville and later, of the University of Louisville law school in 1909,
according to this 1912 “Who’s Who in Louisville,” profile written prior to
their wedding:
DICK, ALBERT C. –
Lawyer.
Born in Louisville, December 31, 1885. son of Albert M. and Emma A.
Dick. Unmarried. Graduate, Centre College, 1907; University of Virgiana
and University of Louisville Law Departments, 1908-09. Business address:
Kenyon building. Residence: 1477 South Third Street

"Mrs. Albert Conrad Dick, 2127 Edgehill Rd
formerly Miss Hattie Cochran
the heroine and original of "Little Colonel"
who takes the part of Lloyd Sherman
in the Little Colonel series (ca. 1928)"
From
The Sunday Herald Post
Louisville, Kentucky, December
23, 1928
Photos by Standiford (Samuel Culbertson Mansion Collection)
Another former Pewee,
Emmet O'Neal, who would
later represent Kentucky in the
U.S. House of Representatives and his nation as ambassador to the
Philippines, was Albert Dick's best man. The two were room mates at Centre
College.
By 1936, her husband was
an insurance executive, heading the insurance firm of Albert C. Dick Co.
in the Columbia Building and the Dicks were living at 2137 Edgehill Road
in Louisville. More information about Albert Dick is available from
a profile prepared by the Citizens Historical Association of Indianapolis
on December 25, 1943 that resides at The Filson Historical Society:
|

Left to right, George Looms,
Emmet O'Neal
and Albert Conrad Dick. Emmet and Albert were room mates at Centre
College in Danville, Ky.
This photo was taken July 12, 1909 in Dawson Springs.
From the private collection of Mary O'Neal. |
Profile of Albert C.
Dick,
Proprietor, Louisville Barrel & Box Company
109 North Twenty-first
Street, Louisville, Kentucky
December 25, 1943
Albert C(onrad) Dick,
son of Albert Mallory and Emma Albertine (Conrad) Dick, was born in
Louisville, Ky., Dec. 31, 1885.
Albert Mallory Dick,
son of Samuel P. and Frances Dick, was born in 1858 in Louisville, Ky.,
where he died June 18, 1918. He was a merchandise broker. His wife, Emma
Albertine (Conrad) Dick, was born in 1863 in Louisville, Ky., where she
died Dec. 18. 1931. She was the daughter of Theophilus and Mary
(Krieger) Conrad. Albert Mallory and Emma Albertine (Conrad) Dick were
the parents of 2 children, Albert Conrad being the elder.
Theophilus Conrad,
father of Emma Albertine (Conrad) Dick, was born in Alsace-Lorraine, and
later came to the U.S., settling in New Orleans, La. He subsequently
moved to Louisville, Ky., where he became pres. of the Conrad Tanning
Co. His wife, Mary (Krieger) Conrad, was born in Indiana. (NOTE:
Theophilus Conrad built the
Conrad-Caldwell
House, a magnificent Richardsonian Mansion on Old Louisville’s St.
James Court known as “Conrad’s Castle” for the extravagant sum of
$75,000. The house is open to the public for tours from noon to 4 p.m.
Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on
Saturday. Admission charge is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for
students.)
Samuel P. Dick, father
of Albert Mallory Dick, was born in Scotland and later came to the U.S.,
settling in Louisville, Ky. when a young man. He founded and became
president of the Dick-Middleton Tobacco. His wife, Frances Dick, was a
native of Pennsylvania.
Albert C. Dick, the
subject of this sketch, attended grade and high schools. in Louisville,
Ky., being graduated from DuPont Manual Training High School. in 1905.
He received. an A.B. deg. from Centre College, of Danville, Ky. in 1907,
an L.L.B. degree. from the University of Virginia in 1909 and an LL.B.
deg. from the University of Louisville in 1910. He engaged in the
practice of law in Louisville from 1910 until 1915, and in the latter
year entered the general insurance business in Louisville. In 1941 he
purchased the Louisville Barrel & Box Co, of which he is sole owner. The
company processes cooperate and steel drums, which are sold
internationally. Mr. Dick, who is a Republican, is a member of the
following: Delta Kappa Epsilon; Pendennis Club; Louisville Country Club;
and Unitarian Church.
On October 3, 1912,
Mr. Dick married Hattie Hoadley Cochran, who was born in Louisville,
Nov. 24, 1890. Her parents, Hoadley and Amelia (Weissinger) Cochran are
dead. Hoadley Cochran was a steam engineer. Mr. and Mrs. Dick are the
parents of two children: (1) Albert Conrad, Jr., who was born Sept. 17,
1915. He is serving with the rank of 2nd lieutenant in the
U.S. Army Air Corps. (2) John H. Cochran, who was born Sept. 20, 1920.
He is serving in the Engineer Corps of the U.S. Army.

The Little Colonel at
age 78
Even as the years passed
and the popularity of Annie Fellows Johnston’s books began to wane, Hattie
Cochran Dick remained inextricably linked with the “Little Colonel.” The
1969 “Courier-Journal” article by Yvonne Eaton described the impact that
notoriety on her life:
Her hair is now white.
The curls are still there. And almost uncanny is the resemblance still
of the Little Colonel to the Shirley Temple who portrayed the famous
Little Colonel in the movie in the mid-‘30s.
One wonders if Mrs.
Albert C. Dick, Sr., now 78, would like people to forget that she was
the inspiration for Annie Fellows Johnston’s famous “Little Colonel”
series.
With a little
prodding, however, the former Hattie Cochran will talk about the Little
Colonel in a matter-of-fact way. But some of the mannerisms of the
Little Colonel appear to reamin, such as a little bow as guests leave.
Mrs. Dick doesn’t
think the fame which the popular books brought to her affected her life
“in any way at all. Children don’t pay any attention to things like
that. We didn’t think anything about it….I never felt like a celebrity.”
Nevertheless through
the years she has been asked many, many times about the characters and
incidents in the books and the relationships to real people. Or what it
felt like being the Little Colonel. And to autograph books or to pose
for one more picture. Or to grant still another interview.
She does answer some
of the letters (about 10 a year now compared to about 25 a few years
ago) but not all. “One would tell another and then the lettes would
start to pile up. And my hand is almost paralyzed.” Mrs. Dick had a
stroke about three and a half years ago.
One of her most recent
replies was to a woman who teaches in a college in San Antonio who later
wrote Mrs. Dick: “My mother who is now 77, both my sisters and I grew up
reading and loving the stories about the Little Colonel and day dreaming
that we knew her. And I am sure this is true of thousands of other
girls, too…” And she was right.
Later in the interview,
however, she noted that neither her two children nor her three
grandchildren were impressed enough by her role in inspiring the tales to
actually read them:
As for her
grandchildren’s reading the books, they’re “just like my own boys
(Albert C. Dick, Jr. and J.H. Cochran Dick) were. They were so afraid
they’d be called sissies if they read that kind of books. Boys are such
fools about things like that, I think, though, they know little parts of
them.”
Albert Conrad Dick died
in 1955, Hattie in 1975.
Both are buried in
Cave Hill
Cemetery. Hattie Cochran Dick’s obituary was published in the
Courier-Journal on January 3, 1975:
Mrs. A.C. Dick, ‘Little Colonel’
Inspirer, Dies
Mrs. Albert C. Dick,
who as a young girl inspired the famous “Little colonel” stories by
Annie Fellows Johnston, died Thursday afternoon at National Health
Enterprises Northfield.
She was 84.
It was in the 1980s
that Mrs. Dick, then Hattie Cochran, met Mrs. Johnston in Pewee Valley
and the Little Colonel was born.
Her name in the
stories was Lloyd Sherman, and Pewee Valley became Lloydsboro Valley,
but the places and people in the books actually existed in the town
where Hattie Cochran grew up.
It was said that she
got her Little Colonel nickname because she inherited her colonel
grandfather’s imperious manner and determination to get his own way.
In 1969, Mrs. Dick was
asked if she did have some of those traits as a child, if she did have
temper tantrums. She replied that she remembered lying on the floor and
kicking, but added: “Why every child does that.”
Shirley Temple played
the role in a movie in the mid-30s.
Now, there is a Little
Colonel Playhouse in Pewee Valley. It is a revamped general store.
Mrs. Dick was a member
of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America and a former member
of the Pendennis Club, Louisville Country Club and Junior League of
Louisville.
She was a charter
member of the Cabbage Patch Settlement House.
Survivors include two
sons, Albert C. Dick, Jr. and J.H. Cochran Dick; three grandchildren,
Harriett C. Dick, George C. Dick and David C. Dick.
Private graveside
services will be at Cave Hill Cemetery at 11 a.m. Saturday.
The family requested
that expressions of sympathy take the form of contributions to charity.
During her lifetime,
Hattie Cochran Dick was well known for her Southern hospitality and the
regional fare she served her guests. To try seven of her recipes, visit
Cooking with the Little Colonel
http://www.littlecolonel.com/recipes.htm.
Thanks to
Alex Luken for sending us more articles about Hattie Cochran Dick’s life.

Mom Beck, The Walton's and the
Little Colonel at a tea at Clovercroft
Being winsome
click here for
"Mrs.
Sherman & Papa Jack"
This Site:
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What's New? Biography of Annie Fellows
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Original Little Colonel Book Series)
The Little Colonel (link to U. Penn))
The
Giant Scissors
Two Little
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The Little Colonel's
House Party
The Little Colonel's
Holidays
The Little Colonel's Hero
The Little Colonel
at Boarding-School
The Little Colonel in
Arizona
The Little
Colonel's Christmas Vacation
The Little Colonel, Maid of
Honor
The Little Colonel's
Knight Comes Riding
Mary Ware, The Little Colonel's
Chum
Mary Ware in Texas
Mary Ware's Promised Land
Check our home page for more titles by AFJ on other sites
The People & Characters:
The Little Colonel, Papa
Jack and Mrs. Sherman, The
Old Colonel, Two Little
Knights of Kentucky,
Two Little Knights of Kentucky(2),
Uncle Sidney & Aunt
Elise, parents of the Two Little Knights of Kentucky,
Grandmother McIntyre,
Aunt Allison, The
Waltons, Rob and Anna
Moore, Betty,
Joyce Ware,
Jack Ware, Mom Beck,
Walker, Katherine Marks,
Gay Melville,
The Lees of Arizona,
Small Parts
Their Final Resting Places
The Places: In Pewee (Lloydsboro) Valley:
Map,
Map 2,
Where it all began, The Locust,
The Beeches
Edgewood,
The Little Colonel's Cottage,
The Railroad Station,
"Lloydsboro Seminary",
Clovercroft, The
Post Office, Churches,
The Haunted House at Hartwell Hollow,
Confederate Home
Rollington,
Minor Places In Old Louisville:
The Culbertson
Mansion, "Home of a Hero"
in Indiana::
The Cuckoo's Nest (Indiana), In Arizona:
Lee's Ranch,
Camelback Mountain &
Hole-in-Rock, In Texas:
San Antonio,
The Little Town of Bauer (Boerne),
Penacres,
The Barnaby Ranch,
In France:
The Gate of the Giant Scissors
Letters from Annie
Fellows Johnston and "Mrs Walton"
Scrapbook
Links
Cooking with The Little Colonel
Guest Book
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